Earlier this year, a Salt Lake City, Utah, resident named Tracy Jester was at a drive-thru with her husband and kids when she noticed the line wasn’t moving. At the time, she was seven months pregnant and in desperate need of a snack, so she wanted to figure out what was going on.
“I get out of the car, and I see these people are trying to shoo something,” Jester told The Dodo.
As Jester got closer, she realized that everyone was gathered around a red-tailed hawk. The huge bird was stuck on the ground, unable to move, but no one was helping. Jester quickly decided that she had to try to rescue her.
Tracy Jester
“[I] got a feeling like, ‘OK, I gotta do something here,’” Jester said. “It didn’t sit well with us to just kind of drive away.”
Jester tried calling multiple wildlife rescues, but it was a late Sunday afternoon and many of them were closed. Finally, just as Jester was about to give up hope, Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah (WRCNU) said they could help.
Tracy Jester
Even though WRCNU was nearly an hour’s drive away and they were about to close, they agreed to stay open late. Jester’s husband carefully wrapped the hawk in his sweater and brought her into the car.
“You could just tell, I think, in this little animal’s eyes that it must have known that we were the people that were going to come and help her out,” Jester said.
Even though the hawk, whom Jester’s kids named Butterscotch, seemed calm, everyone was nervous about how she would react to being in the car. But she stayed still the entire time.
Tracy Jester
“You would have thought it was a golden retriever,” Jester said.
When they arrived at WRCNU, the rescuers saw what rough shape Butterscotch was in and warned Jester and her family that she might not make it. Jester and her family left the facility feeling uncertain but still glad that they’d tried to help.
Tracy Jester
Jester called WRCNU every week to get updates on Butterscotch. She learned that Butterscotch had been dealing with parasites but had been feeling much better after getting the medical treatments she needed.
“The last day that I called, I spoke to someone [who] said, ‘You know, if you had not brought her in the day that you did, if you didn’t call, this girl would not be here at all,’” Jester said.
Just four weeks later, Butterscotch was feeling good as new and WRCNU released her back into her natural habitat. Ever since Butterscotch was returned to the wild, Jester has been noticing a red-tailed hawk who likes to sit on a streetlight near her house.
Tracy Jester
“Every time I see it, I’m like, ‘I wonder if that’s Butterscotch up there,’” Jester said.
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