In following a bunch of animal rescues, I see a lot of heartbreaking photos and stories, but I also see some with truly amazing endings as well. I don't often share them, because I assume everyone is here for happy, uplifting content, and don't want to see injured animals, even if the story ends up positive. This story was too amazing to not share though.
I won't post any of the really bad photos, though I will provide you links in case you want to see the "before" photos to see just what an outstanding job the doctors did. Since there's no NSFL/gore tag, I'm not going to just subject you to them.
This Screech Owl was in someone's backyard nest box with a camera, and they had watched this owl for years. On December 28 they saw it getting attacked by chickadees and the camera showed something was wrong with the right eye.
The animal rescue was called, and after seeing the photo of the injury, they came out to help the owl. They wrapped up the owl in its nesting box, and took the whole thing in to the hospital.
Once at the hospital, they saw the owl had cuts and tearing in both upper and lower eyelids. Thankfully the eye itself had not appeared to have been damaged. As owl eyes make up a large portion of their total body size, owl eyes are so commonly damaged in any type of trauma. They do have a clearish membrane / third eyelid, called a nictitating membrane, that helps prevent injury, amount some other jobs it serves. You've probably seen this weird extra eyelid on a dog or cat before.
This photo is taken a while after the opthalmologist performed surgery to save the eyelids. To see the intake photo and right after surgery to see the original extent of the damage, the original post is here.
I expected this owl to have a tough time and still probably lose the eye after I saw the original story. I was so happy to read when I got up today that the owl is fully recovered and back home already!
Here are dinner photos of her during recovery.
And here she is, being returned back to her home. They monitored her for a bit, and saw the owl knew she was back where she belonged and was safe back at her territory!
The full second post can be found here.
This was truly miracle work by Raven Ridge Wildlife Center.
They are one of the handful of rescues that does not shy away from posting the realities of animal rescues. Collisions, gunshots, electrocution, poisoning, and other injuries are daily occurrences, and the majority don't get hair endings like today's owl, but they are there every day doing their best. The work they do, and all animal rescues, is all funded by donation. Animal rescues do not get public funding anywhere that I have seen, so just keep that in mind.
Other recent amazing stories from them include a Red Tailed Hawk that got caught in power lines for hours after going after a squirrel and a Great Horned Owl that came in with numerous dangerous conditions that is now released and safe again.
A big thank you to all who volunteer their time and service to doing this very hard work!
