COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (CBS4) – Usually when Colorado Parks and Wildlife calls firefighters, they need help getting a bear out of a tree. This week in Colorado Springs, officers needed help getting a pair of great horned owlets back into a tree.
The CPW got a call about the baby birds on the ground. When officers arrived on Thursday, they realized they needed some help getting them up into the tree.
This was not as simple as lifting them up and plopping them in a nest. @CSFDPIO Firefighter Eli Neshiem had to stretch to get them in their nest in the top of the tree. They won't be ready to fly for 30 days or so. And their mother was nearby, watching the #rescue. (4/5) pic.twitter.com/sBQgPDHbtF
— CPW SE Region (@CPW_SE) April 1, 2021
Their call brought firefighters from Colorado Springs Fire Station 9. Firefighters Eli Neshiem and Chris Jones did the final rescue.
The ladder engine lifted them up to the nest but still had to stretch out all the way to get the owlets back in the nest.
The mother owl flew away from the nest when the humans arrived but she was close by keeping an eye on the rescue.
Those owlets are about 15 days old meaning the adventurous pair need to stay put.
“Hopefully they’ll stay in there for another 30-35 days,” explained Corey Adler with CPW. “Then they’ll have enough flight feathers and some muscles, more muscles so they can do some flights. They’ll be able to fly away from the nest and go other places and mom will still follow them for while.”
— CPW SE Region (@CPW_SE) April 1, 2021
Adler said in this case the people who found the owlets did exactly right thing by calling CPW. That gave officers the chance to just return the birds to their nest and not disrupt their growth.
In other cases, they can make the decision to safely take birds in distress to the Raptor Center in Pueblo so they can be cared for and safely released back into the wild.
Raetta Holdman
