MIAMI – After nearly a month of rehabilitation and a near-death experience, a native hawk was released back into the wild on Tuesday.
It was a red-shouldered hawk. They’re one of the most common hawks you’ll see in Florida.
Unfortunately, this one was in really rough shape when it came in on Dec. 1, but now it’s been released back into the wild and the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station says it was a particularly special patient.
The release was over in an instant, but it was a moment that took nearly a month of hard work to get to.
That red-shouldered hawk that was seen shooting off into the air arrived at the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station in really rough shape.
“The hawk, without our care, would have been dead within couple of days,” said Dr. Renata Schneider with the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station. “It was on its side, unable to lift its head, eyes half closed, extremely dehydrated.”
Dr. Schneider is a veterinarian with the seabird station and she said they spent weeks caring for the bird, including giving it treatment for possible ingestion of rodent poison, and after 26 days, it was finally healthy enough to be released back into the wild.
“We expect him to survive, to hunt, to thrive, to hopefully reproduce and carry on the red-shouldered hawk population,” she said.
But what makes this hawk so special is that it was the 40,000th bird the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station has treated since it first opened in the 1980s.
“It all started with Harry and Darlene Kelton years ago with an idea that they wanted to help pelicans locally, and it’s just grown into a full wildlife center that’s serving all of the birds and some mammals in Miami-Dade,” said Schneider.