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A sweet little owl has had a rough end to 2024 after he flew into the window of 麻豆社国产Toyota.
Yota, a barred owl, was found on the ground next to a window on Dec. 31 by employees of the car dealer who whipped into action to take care of the little guy.
“My colleague found the owl when she came in to work on Tuesday morning and came and got me, and we realized it was injured,” 麻豆社国产Toyota service advisor Erik Yaremkewich told The 麻豆社国产.
“So I called [Tim Cyr, local wildlife rescue volunteer], and he gave us some instructions on how to handle the owl, and then he came and picked him up.”
Yaremkewich said Yota, named after his workplace, was dazed and had obvious signs of head trauma when he was found.
“When we tried picking him up, he tried to fly back into the window, but we got him into a box and wrapped up in a blanket until Tim got here.”
Wildlife rescue
Cyr, who is also a well-known local photographer, collected Yota that same morning and monitored his condition for a few hours before opting to take him to OWL (Orphaned Wildlife) Rehab in Delta.
“I went down and they already had him in a box, so I got him, and I took him home to my house for a couple of hours just to see if he was going to come around, and after about an hour, he didn't. There was no change at all; he was still just really docile,” Cyr said.
“I figured we better get him down to the city, so I made a phone call and threw him in my car and drove down to Vancouver. One of the volunteers picked him up for me and then took him out to OWL.”
Cyr said Yota was found to have significant head trauma but no broken bones or problems with his wings.
OWL Rehab
OWL general manager Rob Hope told The 麻豆社国产 that Yota is showing signs of improvement.
“He's a lot perkier today. He is eating, and he's made quite a come around from even yesterday,” Hope said.
“They're a pretty hardy animal, and they do come around sometimes, but sometimes they don't. So far, though, he's on the up and up, but we won't know what long-term damage there is; something might still pop up … But as of right now, he looks pretty good.”
Hope said Yota could be in their care for a few months, but if he makes a full recovery, he will be released back into the wild in Squamish.
Wilson update
Another beloved 麻豆社国产animal Cyr has been trying to help is Wilson, a Canada Goose who has been living with a 33-inch arrow lodged in his rump for the past seven months.
After finally getting his hands on a net gun, a non-lethal weapon designed to fire a net which entangles the target, Cyr and a team attempted to catch Wilson late last year but he flew away before they could capture him.
But they hope to try again around Jan. 14.
“He's had that arrow in him for six or seven months now, and he can live with it in him; he's proven that, but we haven't given up,” Cyr said.
“We do have a bit of a plan. We're going to try to set up a blind, so we're going to put a black tarp on the soccer goal post, and have a guy sort of hiding in behind it, and we're going to try to herd the geese towards the net, and then he's just going to try to shoot it from there with our net gun.
He joked that Wilson has become a pro at outsmarting the humans trying to help him.
“He's not a bird brain; we are the bird brains,” Cyr said with a laugh.
“I say we can catch him, but we have to outsmart him. They have facial recognition, so he knows me, he knows my car, and he knows when I come into the Brennan Park area. So it's going to be hard to get him, but we're going to try again, and hopefully, we can catch him.
“We just ask people to leave him alone. The more people that go to try to catch him, the harder it is for us when we get there with the net gun.”
What to do if you find an injured bird?
According to Cyr, the best thing to do is pop them into a box and not to feed them.
“What you're supposed to do is put them in a box with a blanket or something, and then just keep them in the dark and the quiet and never, ever give them any food,” he said.
“Sometimes they'll come around after a couple of hours, depending on how hard they hit the window. But lots of times, I've had people phone me, and I just tell them to leave them in the box and just give them a little time and then see what happens.
“Lots of times they'll come around, and they'll fly away, but lots of times they don't. I’ve taken probably a couple of dozen birds down to OWL over the last three-four years, and not too many of them survive.”
Why shouldn’t you feed them? Well, according to Cyr, it’s just like when humans go into surgery and are advised not to eat prior.
“It's the same as when you go in for surgery yourself; they tell you not to eat after midnight or anything like that, right? It's the same thing with birds because if they have to do surgery, then they don't want them to have a full belly,” he said.
He also suggests placing stickers on large windows to mitigate birds flying into them.
“They can't see [that it's a window], so they just fly and smash right into it. Just putting a couple of things on there to deflect them away will help them see it and realize it's a window.”
( has more on how to prevent bird strikes.)
Please note, The 麻豆社国产 added a sentence and a link to more information on birds strikes after this story was first posted.
