After several months spent in Delta B.C. healing a broken wing, a great grey owl has returned to Esk'etemc (Alkali Lake) territory where it was first found by Calvin Dubray.
“I saw this thing sitting in the middle of the road and I thought it was a rock,” said the community’s education director. It was late October, and Dubray was on his way to work.
As he got closer to the object, he saw feathers and thought it might have been a dead grouse on the road.
“I veered to the side...as I went by it turned its head and looked at me and I saw its big eyes.”
A juvenile owl, alone on the road and apparently able to only hobble around; Dubray knew something was wrong. He grabbed some gloves and cautiously approached the owl, speaking to it as he did to help keep it calm.
His first thought was Scout Island’s Nature House. He set the owl down in his grandson’s car seat and turned back to Williams Lake hoping to find help.
It was a calmer drive than expected. Dubray wasn’t sure if the owl would be aggressive, but the most action he saw was a peck when he tried to keep the bird off his dashboard.
“I looked in my rear view mirror and it wasn’t there,” Dubray recalled. The owl had moved from his grandson's car seat to his own seat and from there dropped down where it was treated to a few pets as if it were a cat, before it tried to get on the dashboard.
The owl ended up visiting Dr. Don Deitrick at the Animal Care Hospital in Williams Lake (ACHWL) who described the bird as "very chill."
Deitrick said the ACHWL is often helping wildlife, but this was the first great grey owl he's helped.
"I kept thinking about it...I'm really excited it got released," Deitrick said. He said the owl was lucky the injury still allowed him to have his wings wrapped so he could be safely transported to a rehabilitation centre in Delta B.C. called Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society, also fittingly shortened to OWL.
Dubray said Rob Hope, Martina Versteeg and the volunteers of OWL showed great empathy as they cared for the bird, and Esk'etemc is planning to give a donation to the society.
At first it was thought the owl might not survive, but with a few months gone by it has made a full recovery and Williams Lake’s Bandstra transportation company helped get the owl back to the Cariboo.
“Hopefully it can go out and live a healthy life,” Dubray said just hours before the owl was released in the afternoon of Thursday, March 27.
The great grey owl is now back home in Esk'etemc territory, probably gliding through trees and over bogs, listening for prey and preparing to mate. Hopefully it is also avoiding traffic, as its injuries were thought to be caused by an incident with a recycling truck whose driver raced to the community to get help.
About 30 people, both from Esk’et and Williams Lake, made their way to the very spot where the owl was found to see it return to the wild. A blessing ceremony was held before it was successfully released near Dog Creek Ranch.
Dubray said the owl spoke to him as they took it out of the truck, and just as they began to play their drums before it was released, another hoot came from in the woods.
In B.C., it is illegal to possess wildlife without a permit. If you find an animal which may need help, directly intervening can sometimes do more harm than good. It is best to observe, take photos, note the location and immediately contact a local wildlife rehabilitation centre or wildlife expert who can help.
According to the BCSPCA, young birds who have fallen out of their nests but show no signs of injury can be helped back into their nests. It is normal to find fledglings, or younger birds who can’t yet fly but appear to be healthy, outside of their nests as they are learning to seek out their own food. Wildlife should be handled with gloves or a towel.
