AMERICUS — From Staff Reports

americustimesrecorder.com



AMERICUS — A phone call to the Times-Recorder’s offic es shortly after 5:30 p.m. Thursday was surprising. The caller was asking for help. He said an owl was trapped in the sign at Perlis Plaza and he could not get anyone to help: fire department, cops or 911.

The Times-Recorder attempted to contact the local game warden and a local bird watcher/lover but met with no success. Later, the newspaper contacted the caller again who said he had run into a police officer who told him he would “take care of it.”

As of Friday morning, the owl was still trapped in the sign. Responding to a citizen's call, the Americus Fire and & Emergency Services (AFES) found the great horned owl, with it's leg trapped.

According to information provided by AFES personnel on site, “Using the Tower, two firefighters carefully approached the exhausted bird, who had apparently been trapped, upside down, since the previous night, and in the sun all morning. As tired as he was, the bird did not take too kindly to being handled. Fortunately, the firefighters' bunker gear (mostly) protected them from the bird's sharp beak and huge talons.

“Once he was safely removed from the sign, the owl was put in a carrier and taken to a Harper's Animal Clinic. It appeared the owl had suffered only an injury to the trapped leg. The personnel at the clinic were able to locate someone who can treat and rehabilitate the owl, and then he will have a home at Chehaw Park.”

On Saturday morning, the Times-Recorder received another e-mail from a firefighter, concerning the rescued owl.

“The initial call was for a ‘hawk’ trapped on the Perlis Plaza sign. As we arrived on scene we could see that this was no hawk; it was a very large owl. He had seemingly landed on the sign, maybe for a resting place for the night and got his foot caught in the gap between the sign and the beams that hold the sign up. Already stressed and probably agitated with the ordeal he was in, he tried to fight as we freed his leg. Just for future reference a Horned Owl’s talon and bite strength is around 500 pounds per square inch ... We covered his head to try and calm him down, but we realized later that he was able to get his head out.

“As you can see in the picture he did a lot of damage to his right leg and he had what appeared to be superficial injuries to his right wing. After we got him ‘grounded’ and placed in a cage he was taken to Harper’s Animal Clinic to wait on someone to come get him. He was then taken to the Flint Riverquarium for treatment. I talked to them today and found out that the injury to his leg was not a break, but due to the severity of it, he still may lose it, and he is very susceptible to infection. We asked that they name him Afes. They also said that if all goes well he will be released back into the wild.”