Shot in Vancouver, red-tailed hawk fights for its life in Portland

The three-year-old hawk, which weighs about 2.2 pounds, was banded by a biologist last year near the Portland International Airport. Now a year later, the bird is fighting for its life. (Photo courtesy of the Audubon Society of Portland.)

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A three-year-old red-tailed hawk is fighting for its life after having its wing shot and broken in Vancouver.

The hawk was shot by an unknown person in a residential neighborhood Sept. 8 near I-5 in Vancouver. The homeowner found the hawk in blackberry bushes in her yard and brought it into the Audubon Society of Portland with a broken left wing.

Veterinarian Deb Sheaffer, who has been on staff for more than eight years and volunteered at the Audubon Society of Portland for 15 years prior to that, has been caring for the bird. She doesn't know if its injured wing will ever heal after the shooting.

"A wing could heal typically in 2-4 weeks, but the big concern is the infection now," she said. "I don't know how graphic I should get, but we had to pull out feathers and debris from the wounds where the bone was. It was quite a mess."

Continued:  http://www.katu.com/news/local/Shot-in-Vancouver-Red-tailed-Hawk-recovering-in-Portland-170416546.html

More information on the red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis):

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/id

http://birdweb.org/birdweb/bird/red-tailed_hawk