By Tim Binnall
A Virginia wildlife center treating a hawk found grounded in a driveway determined that, rather than being injured or sick, the bird was simply too fat to fly. The Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke detailed the odd case in a social media post last week. Upon recovering the red-shouldered hawk, they recalled, "we checked for the usual suspects: broken bones, lead toxicity, eye issues, head trauma, emaciation, bruising from any kind of collision or altercation." However, they marveled, "all were within normal limits," leaving them with seemingly only one answer for why the bird could not take to the skies.
Explaining that the animal weighed more than two pounds, which is double that of a normal red-shouldered hawk, the wildlife center declared, "she was too darn fat to fly!" Noting that such a condition is rare for wild animals, they indicated that a subsequent investigation revealed that a family in the neighborhood where the bird was found had noticed that their "free-roaming chickens were disappearing at an alarming rate over the last few weeks." As such, the wildlife center posited that the hawk had likely been feasting on the easy prey "and then snoozing in the trees nearby until she was ready to eat again," creating a vicious cycle all too familiar to anyone who has battled the bulge.
While they acknowledged that the story was amusing, the wildlife center stressed that, in some respects, it is no laughing matter. "This is a man-made issue," they wrote, "and this could have had a sadder ending if she had been found by a larger predator." Fortunately, the chunky hawk managed to escape becoming a meal for some other voracious animal, though it is uncertain what became of it after being rescued. One imagines, at the very least, the bird was put on a diet to help shed the excess weight, which was the case with a similarly corpulent owl that was rescued in England a few years ago.