Admission of shot cooper's hawk

One of the main goals of this blog is to bring public awareness to the plight of human inflicted injuries to birds of prey and other wildlife. I believe that if more people can witness these atrocities and the face of the individual animals they might think twice about walking away as they occur or keeping their mouths shut when they hear someone bragging about shooting that pesky critter that's been hanging around. It is morally wrong in my opinion to persecute an animal for its inherent nature, especially when its only crime is being born of some creature that some human deems unworthy to draw breath.



This beautiful fully mature cooper's hawk was admitted with a hole in her lower abdomen and one in her back. Although we have yet to find any remnants of ammunition, it looks suspiciously like a bullet wound (theorized as a high powered rifle by our resident gun expert). Cooper's hawks are frequently persecuted by bird fanciers and livestock owners. It is a federal crime and these people can only be prosecuted with the help of concerned people who are willing to get involved.


Although it certainly seems miraculous that this bird survived this heinous attack, she is not out of the woods yet. We will not know the full extent of her injuries until an x ray or radiograph is taken. She may have internal injuries as she has already exhibited respiratory distress. These pictures may be hard to look at, but I feel that it is important that people are exposed to this. Just think what the bird is and will be going through.



We also received a short tailed hawk also suspected of being shot. There was a massive amount of bleeding around the site. This bird unfortunately perished as a result of her injuries. This will make the fourth short tail received this season. A rare visitor to our center, and all under suspicion of gunshot injury.