From Badger Run Wildlife Rehab
Here’s our little Short-eared owl patient, 2026-158. This is not aggressive behavior. This is BEGGING.
In the wild this little guy would already be hunting on his own. Because he was improperly raised by a well-meaning DIY rehabber he(?) is completely imprinted on humans and begs for food when he sees us and he’s hungry.
Please don’t try to raise wildlife on your own. They grow up so quickly that any mistakes made will become life threatening problems faster than you will be prepared for.
This bird can’t fly (no word given on why, could be bad nutrition, no room to exercise/build muscle, may have healed improperly from an injury, etc) and will likely never enjoy soaring great distances, hunting widespread grasslands, and all the other wonderful things it should be getting to do.
I wish I had more info on it. If this is their patient #158, they just be a small clinic. (We’re almost at 3500 for comparison.). Small places usually don’t have much time to go into many details. I thought it was a bit overkill when we got a dedicated media person this year, but it’s really helped us get much more informative posts done. The rehabber’s personal time is near non-existent, so I’m sure the last thing they want to do is write about work a lot of the time! 😂
I hope that getting him a proper aviary will at least let him build muscle to fly, he could have been tethered if he was kept in someone’s home. A SEO isn’t huge, but it’d be about like tossing an (American) football around in the house. That’s what I think of with their typical size and shape.
It’s future will likely be determined by how grown it was when the original person kidnapped it and how long they kept it. They can test its hunting ability to see if it could be released.
Our GHO ambassador was a partial imprint, and they attempted to release him twice, if I remember his story correctly, but he kept deciding raiding the trash and yards of the neighborhood was going to be easier than hunting and they recaptured him before he could be hurt. It kinda makes him a poor ambassador for us, but we either keep him on our gravy train, try to find someone else that wants an owl that doesn’t really cooperate, or euthanize him. So he works a few hours a year and spends the rest of the time glaring at us! We love him anyway though. We admire his attitude. 😊
I wish this young Shortie the best of luck though. I hope they find the best future for it. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for updates.
Edit: I knew it should have looked for updates before I replied! 😅 Sounds like the person really screwed this owl over, but he should have an otherwise spoiled life now.
Fair enough!
You were too quick! I updated my post because I found more info. He’s going to be non-releasable and they are applying to keep him. More details if you recheck my other previous comment.