Barn Owl Hung Up On Barbed Wire
Believe me, this was a traumatic event for all concerned. Yesterday morning while driving west on the South Road in the Centennial Valley of southwest Montana we found this beautiful Barn Owl hanging from barbed wire along the side of the road. In its struggles to escape the owl had wrapped its wing around the sharp double barb that had penetrated its flesh to the point that it was bleeding and I couldn’t get the owl off the wire easily. First I cut both barbs off but I still couldn’t disentangle the owl so I had to cut out a 2′ piece of the wire with the owl still attached to it. Then we laid the owl on my pickup tailgate (partially wrapped in a towel) and began the extraction process. At that point a near-miracle occurred. A car drove up on the deserted road and it happened to be Bill West, Manager of nearby Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Bill was on his way to a meeting in Dillon (roughly 80 miles away) and helped me to extract the owl from the wire. We wrapped it up in his jacket and Bill took it to the Humane Society in Dillon where arrangements were made to transport it to a rescue center in Bozeman. My next concern was the wire I had cut. “Cuttin’ fences” is serious business in cattle country – cows can get out and both people and cows can be killed in accidents when they do, not to mention the fact…