| Debbie Pappas and Debbie Sartori tend to an injured redtail hawk that was found shot in Emery County. |
Lying on the table with a towel over her head so she doesn’t wiggle, the wounds of the female redtail hawk are carefully tended. A large steel bar stabilized by several pins keep the broken leg in place, while the bird nurses Debbie Pappas and Debbie Sartori carefully change the bandages. Although the bird is out of immediate danger it is not certain she will be released or able to fly again. The young female was found in a hay field in Emery county a few weeks ago, shot and lying for dead with both legs damaged and a broken wing.
“The bullet damaged everything,” said Pappas, explaining that it went through the bone, skin, nerves, ligaments, tendons and muscle. When she was shot the fall damaged her wing.
Pappas says that the bird will be in rehab for a long time, “and I am not even sure she’ll even be releasable.”
But the hawk is eating well and, “has a lot of fight in her,” says Pappas. Although there are no movements in the one foot the bird is responding well to the surgeries.
The Division of Wildlife Resources is currently running an investigation into the shooting and a reward is being offered for any information leading to the arrest of the person who shot the hawk.