Giving a hoot about Thesen's owls

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KNYSNA NEWS AND GALLERY - One of the two-spotted eagle owls that have come to call Thesen Islands home over the past decade and have crept into the hearts of Knysnarians, has made a miraculous recovery after nearly bleeding to death.

She was recently released back into the wild after three weeks in rehabilitation at Raptor Rescue outside Plettenberg Bay.

The owl needed to undergo significant treatment and rehabilitation after she was found bleeding profusely across the road from one of its primary roosting spots, an owl box in a tree outside Ile de Pain on Thesen Islands.

PHOTO GALLERY: Spotted Eagle owls' miraculous recovery

She was spotted by Jana Presto, who was gyming / was exercising in the gym / spotted her from the gym. "I immediately fetched my son, Giorgio, from school because he loves nature and animals, to help me look for the owl," Presto said.

Giorgio, a matric student at Oakhill School set on a career in environmentalism, realised that they needed the help of the team at the Knysna Veterinary Clinic, who responded to their call immediately.

"We noticed she was bleeding a lot but she had flown into someone's apartment. So we needed to get hold of the homeowner first, and after frantically running around we managed to find her and get to the owl," Giorgio said.

"The owl was whisked off to Knysna Vet to be treated before being taken away by the team from Raptor Rescue. This is where Raptor Rescue co-owners Laura Fotheringham and Mark Robson entered the picture. They knew the owl needed a lot of help.

"She was anaemic when we got her and for the first week-and-a-half or so she didn't really eat much, so she lost a lot of weight and we weren't sure if she was going to make it," Robson said.

Traces of Warfarin were found in the owl's blood.

This is an anticoagulant (blood thinner) commonly used in rat poison.

It is assumed that she had eaten a rat that had been poisoned. Poisoned rodents consumed by raptors are a very real environmental problem.

"When we found her she had a very small cut on her leg which is what caused her to bleed, and with the Warfarin it just kept bleeding and bleeding," Fotheringham explained.

The owl was put on a three-week rehabilitation process to flush the Warfarin out of her system and to get her back on track to being a healthy owl, starting on 13 April.

Raptor Rescue co-owner Mark Robson prepares to lift the lid on the box in which the owl was transported.

"We put her on a treatment of Vitamin K and tube feeding with AD [a restorative food source] and soft foods for the first week or so, and then she started eating normally again," Fotheringham said.

The owl weighed about 700g when she was picked up by Raptor Rescue, but at the time of her release, she was back up to 875g, according to Robson.

She was released outside Ile de Pain on Monday 2 May, two days shy of the three-week mark.

"We felt she was strong enough to be released and today is also quiet because it's a public holiday, so it was better to do it now," Fotheringham said.

The hope now is that the owl will reintegrate herself with her surroundings and that she and her partner will get back together again and mate in the upcoming season.

Robson said that while it's been done in the past, mostly with other bird species, it's very rare that an owl is taken away from its mating partner for such a long period.

This is why there is slight trepidation about the pair getting back together, but everybody remains hopeful. "She looks very strong, and she is flying well too, so we hope she'll get back into the swing of things," Robson said shortly after the release.

After refamiliarising herself with the area, the owl flew up into the trees. Photos: Blake Linder