This hawk gobbled up neighbourhood chickens until she got too fat to fly
'She's our big lady,' says director of Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center
When someone brought an immobilized red-shouldered hawk to the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center last month, staff suspected she was either blinded, injured or poisoned.
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she → gobble → Center
After all, the agile huntress should have been soaring through the sky and hunting unwitting prey.
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huntress → soar → prey
But instead, she was found belly-up in a driveway near Roanoke, Va.
After a series of X-rays and bloodwork, veterinary staff ruled out any injuries or health issues behind the creature's mobility issues.
Instead, they found she was 910 grams — almost twice the average weight for her species.
"[The] hawk's diagnosis was just that she's fat," Katherine McGrath, the wildlife rescue's director of operations, told As It Happens host Nil Kӧksal.
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Filled with fowl
Once they had their diagnosis in hand, staff set about solving the mystery of how the hawk had gotten so hefty.
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hawk → fill → mystery
"Wild animals, unless they're being fed, typically do not get to a stage where we can clinically say that they're obese.
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they → feed → stage
So we thought someone was keeping her illegally as a pet, you know, or as a falconry bird," McGrath said.
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McGrath → think → bird
The immobilized hawk weighed 0.91 kilograms, which is 910 grams or roughly one pound.
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which → weigh → kilograms
Member of her species usually range from 500 to 700 grams, says the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center.
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Center → range → grams
They reached out to the people who found her, but they weren't aware of anyone in the neighbourhood who practiced falconry or kept wild birds.
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who → reach → birds
"And then we asked, 'Do any of your neighbours have free-roaming poultry or chickens or anything like that?" she said.
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she → ask → that
The finders chatted with their neighbours and learned that, yes, several of them kept free-roaming chickens, which had been inexplicably disappearing in recent weeks.
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which → chat → weeks
"And we were like, 'Ah, well, we have the bandit,'" McGrath said.
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McGrath says it's actually not that unusual for a hawk to eat so much it can't move.
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Even a regular-weight hawk, she says, can become temporarily grounded after eating a large meal because the "balance of how much it takes for them to fly is so delicate.
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them → say → much
"
What's more, she says, a hawk has no way of knowing when it's had enough.
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it → say → enough
So an all-you-can-eat buffet of easy pickin' prey can be a recipe for disaster.
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buffet → eat → disaster
"Most wild animals, because they have to live through winter or live through lean times, if they have a good steady supply of food, they are going to … gorge themselves," McGrath said.
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McGrath → have → themselves
Staff at the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center says this over-stuffed hawk will be ready to fly free in a matter of weeks.
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hawk → say → weeks
But, all things considered, McGrath says their pudgy patient is doing just fine.
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patient → consider → ?
"She's actually showing all of the normal red-shouldered hawk behaviours," she said.
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she → show → behaviours
And by normal hawk behaviours, McGrath means she's wary of her human caretakers and mad as hell about her unwilling captivity.
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she → mean → captivity
"She does what we call the funny chicken dance … where they sort of throw up their wings and try to kick out with their feet at you because they want you to be away," she said.
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she → do → you
"So other than not being able to fly, everything about that bird says that she's healthy and angry, which is just what we want."
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we → fly → what
Katherine McGrath of the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center says she and her colleagues have been 'delighted' by their voracious guest.
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she → say → guest
Soon, McGrath says, the prodigious predator will fly free once more.
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predator → say → ?
She's already losing weight and gaining mobility as staff feed her a restricted, all-natural diet, and take her for regular exercise in their enclosure.
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staff → lose → enclosure
McGrath suspects she'll be ready to leave in a few weeks.
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she → suspect → weeks
Before they release her, McGrath says the centre's staff will get in touch with nearby residents to give them a heads up and ask them to keep their chickens enclosed for a while.
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staff → release → while
"We do try to mitigate the ability for them to get into trouble again," she said.
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she → try → trouble
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