Monday morning shortly before 7 a.m., Heaven MacPhee looked out a window of her home on the west side of New Glasgow and saw the owl on her family’s lawn surrounded by two cats.
“She ran outside, shooed them away and somehow managed to get the owl to get on a piece of wood,” Heaven’s mother Karen said.
The owl appeared to be injured so she carefully put it in a box and took it inside.
Karen’s husband Kenny did a Google search online about what to do with an injured owl in Nova Scotia and found a contact from the Cobequid Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre. Karen called and they agreed to take the owl and care for it.
Through a friend they were able to connect with Paul Schurr from the Department of Natural Resources who agreed to transport the owl to the rehabilitation centre.
She said it was amazing how calm the owl was when the DNR worker came to pick it up.
Karen said they didn’t want to disturb it too much, but it looked like the wing was broken so that it couldn’t fly.
She was told by staff at the Cobequid Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre that their first choice is to fix it and release it back where it was found.
In some cases if the injuries are too severe, they will be forced to euthanize the animal.
If it can be fixed, but they don’t think it would survive in the wild, another option is to move it to the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park.
“I hope it can be re-released,” Karen said. “It was some sweet.”
This isn’t the first time Heaven has rescued an animal.
“A couple months ago she rescued a mouse out of a cat’s mouth,” Karen said. That mouse became a pet for her.
None of it surprises Karen, who says Heaven has been an animal lover from the time she was an infant.
They hope that the little owl, will be able to get the care it needs and hopefully fully recover.
