Providing the best care at VCA Northwest Hills Animal Hospital in Austin, Texas sometimes means knowing the right person to ask for help.
Word had gotten to hospital manager Amy Johnson-Carney that a client had seen a small, injured owl half a block from the hospital. Amy put an immediate call in to a wildlife center then city animal control officers, but neither could make it out for a few days.
VCA Northwest Hills—like most animal hospitals—doesn’t usually treat wild owls, but they can find those who do. It’s part of VCA’s commitment to social responsibility and adapting care to meet the needs of our changing planet.
Amy met friend and VCA client Alexis Mulholland when they worked together with a local pug rescue that cares for and finds homes for the small, flat-nosed breed across the Austin metro area. As luck would have it, Alexis has a permit to rehabilitate owls and other carnivorous birds (raptors). Folks who find injured raptors in need call her out to retrieve the birds and give them food, care, and time to heal in temporary captivity in enclosures in her backyard. Once recovered, the goal is to re-release them back into the wild.
When she got the call from Amy, Alexis took a break from her day job and raced across town where a little screech owl was lying on the side of the highway, dazed and not moving. Alexis had been training for years for moments just like this.
How a Raptor Rehabber Works
Years before meeting the little owl on the side of an Austin highway, Alexis graduated from Texas A&M University with a bachelor's degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences. She moved to Austin for a job unrelated to her degree to pay the bills and channeled her deep passion for helping wild animals into volunteer work.
“In college, birds were my jam,” Alexis jokes. “Especially birds of prey, who were a little more hardy than little birds. Hummingbirds you need to feed constantly. But raptors are a little more tolerant of a newbie caring for them.”
She trained under the wing (pun intended) of Ed Sones with Austin Area Wildlife Rehabilitation. To become certified as a raptor rehabilitator, Alexis needed to complete a training course and receive a letter of recommendation from another rehabilitator who's had a permit for at least three years themselves.
“For raptor care, there’s a state license, then a federal license you need,” Alexis says. “Then you need to have a veterinarian who’s willing to work with you.”
Ed guided her to a veterinarian in nearby Cedar Park, Texas, who helped teach Alexis how to capture, care for, feed, examine, and release raptors back into the wild.
Rescuing Birds Between Meetings
In Texas, people aren’t typically supposed to pick up or move a raptor in the wild. That’s where Alexis comes in. When she got the call that an owl needed help, Alexis had to squeeze in a quick drive between meetings at her full-time job to retrieve the owl.
“I was a little nervous,” Alexis says, as she knew the owl was right near a sidewalk and may have attracted unwanted attention from well-meaning people or other predators.
Alexis estimates she and her Austin Area Wildlife Rehabilitation colleagues get up to 30 or so calls a year for screech owls, which are small, hunt close to the ground, chase prey lit up in headlights at night, and are therefore sometimes hit by oncoming cars.
When she found the owl, Alexis was concerned he’d sustained a serious injury.
“He was dazed, and he wasn’t acting defensively,” she explains.
At home, a physical exam of the bird’s beak, wings, and feet showed almost no injuries, except for a minor issue with the eye.
“One of his eyes wouldn’t open," Alexis says. The pupil was slow to dilate and adjust to light and darkness.
“This is typical of birds struck by cars, and most birds’ eyes do recover,” she says. Alexis put the owl in a quiet room in her home and gave him a few hours to rest, which helped his eye to heal quickly.
“That night, I left him with water and a chance to eat,” Alexis says, which meant a small dead mouse, originally frozen from the pet store and thawed for the new guest. Thankfully, the owl ate on his own that night. Once he seemed fully awake and aware, Alexis moved the owl to the backyard enclosure, where he’d have room to flutter and hop up and down from a higher perch.
A while later, it was time for the flight test, when Alexis and a partner take a recovering raptor out to a field. One of them watches for hawks who would try to eat a smaller, exposed bird like a screech owl. The other partner lets the raptor loose to fly, but still attached to a line on the fishing pole. That way the team can see if the bird can easily and painlessly manage a short flight. The fishing line also keeps the recovering bird from flying away in unfamiliar territory before it’s totally healthy.
This little screech owl’s flight test went off without a hitch.
“Once a bird passes the flight test, we want to get them released as soon as possible,” Alexis says.
Owl’s Well That Ends Well
Amy was happy to hear back from Alexis, who called when the owl was fully healed and ready to be released.
Raptor rehabilitation experts try to return birds as close as possible to where they were found since they’re already familiar with the territory and the location of water sources. In this case, the VCA Northwest Hills parking lot was nearby but also a little further from the highway and the danger of cars. On the day of the owl’s release, Alexis lectured a bit about the species to the excited audience of VCA team members before letting him loose.
The little owl was initially hesitant to leave Alexis’ arm, which is normal.
“Owls are wise,” she laughs. “This bird wasn’t going to fly off before he’d found the perfect spot to land.”
When the little screech owl finally took off, he flew right to the perfect perch he had identified in a nearby tree.
Extending Care Beyond Our Walls
The team at VCA Northwest Hills is committed to providing high quality care and exceptional service to clients and their pets. Sometimes VCA Associates take their promise to care for animals to another level—something a little screech owl somewhere in the Austin area appreciates.
VCA is proud to partner with wildlife and rescue organizations across the country, ensuring all animals get the care they need. To learn more about some of VCA’s partnerships and how you can help, please visit the VCA Charities website.
