Great Horned Owl Released After One Year of Rehab

Pacific Wildlife Care released a great horned owl on Labor Day Monday.

The adult great horned owl was found over a year ago in Arroyo Grande, entangled in a barbed wire fence.

The bird’s rescuer was able to cut a small section of fence wrapped around the bird’s right wing and brought the bird to the Pacific Wildlife Care clinic.

Pacific Wildlife Care sees more than 2,000 animals per year.

Wildlife rehabilitation veterinarian, Shannon Riggs,has seen it all, from a golden eagle with poor eyesight, that might’ve gotten an electrical shock, to malnourished grey gulls.

Many of the animals brought into the clinic are birds. The great horned owl, a common San Luis Obispo County bird, came to the clinic from Arroyo Grande on Memorial Day 2013.Riggs said, “Barbed wire injuries aren’t common, you’ll see about a handful a year.”

The barbed wire injury could have killed the owl. The owl is known as 13-747. Pacific Wildife Care doesn’t name the wild animals it brings in but this owl will be remembered as the “holiday owl,” coming in on Memorial Day,and being set free on Labor Day 2014.

Riggs said the rescuers did the right thing.”Rather than try to untwist the owl on their own they cut the barbed wire on either side of the owl and brought the owl and barbed wire to us.”

Rehabilitation required skin grafts and a technique called creance.