Owl returns to wild after more than two years of rehab

Nov. 23—A female great horned owl took flight over the Rio Grande on Tuesday, more than two years after it was found injured along Interstate 25 near Albuquerque.

The owl spent over 700 days at the New Mexico Wildlife Center in Española before animal rehabilatator Stephanie Lindsell was able to release it at the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge in Albuquerque's South Valley.

"Typically, patients aren't in care for this long, so this one is really special for us," Lindsell said Tuesday before the bird's release. "We are so happy to finally be setting her free."

The owl was taken to the wildlife center with a fractured wing in December 2020 after first receiving care at Hawks Aloft, an Albuquerque-based raptor rescue organization. Lindsell said Hawks Aloft usually transfers birds of prey to the wildlife center so they can relearn to fly in its large flight enclosure.

Jessica Schlarbaum, a spokesperson for the center, said it rehabilitates native species, and about 65 percent of them are released back into the wild.

"We take in about 800 to 1,000 patients each year, and we get them from all over New Mexico," Schlarbaum said. "We have a volunteer transporter network all over the state that helps to bring patients to our hospital."

Rescuers believe the great horned owl was hit by a car and likely only survived because it was rescued.

Even with the help of Hawks Aloft, Lindsell said, the carnivorous bird was in rough shape when it arrived at the wildlife center.

"She had already been callousing and was still recovering from that wing fracture, but her feathers were in really terrible condition," Lindsell said. "They were all very fragile. ... So even though she was healing from this break, she would not have been able to fly very well, and certainly not fly silently, which she will need to do in order to hunt."

To make matters worse, veterinarians discovered the owl had contracted a viral infection, potentially West Nile virus, which made its feathers brittle.

Vets would normally replace the feathers with donor feathers through a process called imping, but Lindsell said the bird's feathers were still too unhealthy for the procedure. The only other option was to wait for the owl to molt and release it after it had grown its new, healthy plumage.

"The problem with great horned owls is they have a two-year molt cycle," Lindsell said. "So the bird recovered from its fracture, but because its feathers were in such bad condition, we've just had to play the waiting game with her.

"Ultimately, we only had to replace two feathers before she was ready to go. We did that about two or three weeks ago, and she's been flying really, really well," Lindsell added.

The owl spent the last few weeks of its rehabilitation in prey school, where it practiced hunting in the center's 100-foot enclosure.

Lindsell said rehabilators chose Valle del Oro for the release because it is near the bosque and other open areas where the owl can hunt.

"And it is close to where it came from, so that is ideal for this species," she said.

Now that the raptor has been released, it will go on to play a vital role in the area's ecosystem. The refuge sits on a former dairy farm just a few miles south of Albuquerque and is a designated Urban National Wildlife Refuge.

While the property still consists of mostly agricultural fields, the refuge's long-term plan is to make it "into a mosaic of native middle Rio Grande Valley habitats and an oasis to both wildlife and people," according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's website.

As one of the top predators in the area, the great horned owl will help keep mice, rabbit and snake populations at bay.

"A lot of the animals that they eat tend to overpopulate, so they do help control that," Lindsell said. "They'll also eat animals that might be threats to the crops or agriculture or things like that."