RHINELANDER (WJFW) \u2014 A Northwoods resident formed a connection with an injured barred owl last week after helping to save it in Nokomis. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The owl\u00ad\u2014who was likely hit by a car\u2014is currently recovering with the help of the Rhinelander-based wildlife rehabilitation center, Wild Instincts. Though the future of the bird is up in the air.<\/p>\n
Kara Kroupa, the Northwoods resident, found the owl on a normal day.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI was driving to work like normal, on a normal work day,\u201d Kroupa said. \u201cIt had just snowed so there were chunks of snow on the road because they had plowed and whatever else. I went by this chunk of snow and all of a sudden it moved and I\u2019m like \u2018that\u2019s not right.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She knew she had to do something to save it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt almost purred,\u201d she said. \u201cIt kind of felt like a connection. It\u2019s a part of life in the Northwoods and I\u2019m attached to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She got help from some Nokomis employees who were able to shelter the owl until Wild Instincts could pick it up and care for the animal.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically, it\u2019s just a matter of getting on pain meds and anti-inflammatories right away,\u201d said Mark Naniot, director of rehabilitation for Wild Instincts. \u201cGetting it in a situation where its warmer, has oxygen and fluids and kind of let the bird rest up for a while and get the bleeding to stop and then we can do a more thorough examination and x-rays.\u201d<\/p>\n
After treatment, the was owl healthy enough to stand on its own. Kroupa has been calling the rehabilitation center every day for an update.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like calling and checking on a loved one in the hospital,\u201d Kroupa said.<\/p>\n
But it still has one big obstacle standing in the way of its release: it\u2019s currently blind.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you get it soon enough and you can reduce that swelling, a lot times the vision comes back and everything is fine,\u201d Naniot said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t get it soon enough or the swelling is too severe or there\u2019s actually damage to that optic nerve, it\u2019s a situation where that does not grow back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blind birds can\u2019t survive in the wild and can\u2019t live in captivity by federal regulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cRehab centers have a success rate of about 50%,\u201d Naniot said. \u201cSo that means if you have 1,000 animals come in, 500 get released and 500 of them don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
The owl has been blind for 6 days and after 12 days, it\u2019s likely it\u2019s vision won\u2019t ever return and the bird will be euthanized.<\/p>\n
But Kroupa is holding out hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very hopeful,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re just so attentive and so good at what they do there that I\u2019m hoping that for some miracle that this bird comes out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the owl\u2019s vision does return, it has no injuries preventing from a full return to the wild.<\/p>\n
Wild Instincts, has seen situations like this owl before and recommend people not leave food on the side of the road to prevent more animal injuries like this one. If you want to help Wild Instincts take care of this owl and other animals, you can donate to them through their website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RHINELANDER (WJFW) \u2014 A Northwoods resident formed a connection with an injured barred owl last week after helping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[3729,3,79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-380718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-local","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}