A Great Grey Owl is recuperating at the Williams Lake Veterinary Hospital after being rescued by a Springhouse couple Tuesday.
“We were walking our two German Shepherds and saw the owl perched on a branch about 50 cm off the ground,” Eve Winkler told the Weekend Advisor. “Our dogs ran up and barked, but the owl didn’t move.”
Half an hour later Eve and her husband Herbert returned on an ATV without the dogs and noticed the owl had moved about two or three metres.
“We realized there was something wrong with it,” Eve said.
When they called the vet, the vet told them to call Tammy Zacharias at 2nd Chance Wildlife Centre in Quesnel.
Zacharias told them how to capture the owl and encouraged them to call local volunteer Sue Burton who came and picked up the owl to transport it to the vet.
“We didn’t know how to catch an owl, but Tammy said get one person to distract it and the other to put a blanket over it,” Eve said.
They put the owl in a dog crate and waited for Burton to arrive.
Great Grey Owls are not something the Winklers have seen on their property often during the 24 years they have lived at Springhouse.
This owl, however, had been hanging around for a few months. They could hear it at night.
“It was interesting though because the owl didn’t move its head around and that made us concerned. Besides, there are so many coyotes around here,” she added.