Rehabilitated snowy owl released in Polson
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POLSON — There’s a new girl in town: a female snowy owl. Becky Kean from the Montana Raptor Conservation Center in Bozeman brought the owl to Polson to release her near other snowy owls in the Skyview subdivision.
Found near Malta in December, the owl, believed to have hatched last summer, had a fractured left wing from a gunshot wound, probably a shotgun since her X-rays showed pellets. For about four weeks, the young bird’s wing was stabilized with vet wrap, a stretchy bandage that sticks to itself but not to skin, and then she had physical therapy. In the owl’s case, physical therapy meant rotating her wing so the ulna and radius would not fuse. She healed well, retaining her wing function. According to Kean, the owl longed to return to the wild.
Kean called national snowy owl expert Denver Holt, director of the Owl Research Institute in Charlo, to get his advice on where to release the big bird. Holt recommended an area with a snowy owl population and a good food supply.
Since Kean wasn’t aware of any snowy owls near Bozeman, she crated the owl and drove four and a half hours to Polson, where the owl has a good chance of connecting with other snowy owls and can prey on the larger-than-normal vole population.
Before setting her free, owl experts Kean and Matt Larson, another ORI employee, fitted an aluminum band on the owl’s leg to identify her if she is ever caught again. The problem, Holt said, is that she looks so much like the other owls it will be hard to track her to see if she flourishes.
Upon release and sensing freedom, the young owl unfurled her wings and arched through space across Skyline Drive.
(Editor's note: This story is being reprinted after an incomplete version inadvertently was printed in the March 14 issue of the Valley Journal.)
