The Hawk’s Story

January 9, 2011

This week we were called to go pick up an injured hawk. It’s all too common a story: hawks see dead possums on the road and fly to down feed on them. They get their talons into the flesh to tear it apart, and when a car comes speeding around the corner, the hawk can’t disentangle quickly enough. They get hit by the car, and if not killed outright they sustain terrible injuries. This magnificent creature had a compound fracture of the ‘elbow’ in his left wing. If not found, they starve slowly to death. I keep heavy rubber gloves in the boot of my car, as I always stop and pull dead possums off the road and fling them onto the verge. My girlfriends hate it (“Oh no, you’re not going to stop AGAIN, are you?!”), but I know that by dragging roadkill off the road, we’re genuinely helping to save a hawk’s life.