A Very Unique Rescue Story: Archimedes the Great Horned Owl
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By: Raven Jeanne Capozzo
General Manager of SWRR
Rescue, rehabilitate and release. That is our business here at Shasta Wildlife. It’s actually our legal name: Shasta Wildlife Rescue, Rehabilitation & Release Inc. (SWRR). We are a non-profit wildlife rehabilitation facility that serves wildlife in need in Shasta, Siskiyou, Trinity, Tehama, Lassen, Modoc, and sometimes even Butte counties, 365 days a year. Injured and orphaned wildlife do not observe holidays, and neither can we. When people learn who I am and what I do, they always think it’s the coolest job on the planet, and they are not wrong. This job as a wildlife rehabber and the General Manager of a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center is not all perks though. In fact, there are so many heartbreaking, exhausting, and infuriating moments that those close to me often ask: “How do you do it?” I always say the same thing: I try to take care of myself so I can care for all of my volunteers and the wild animals we take in, and I have had to learn to accept the losses and rejoice in the successes.
That being said, this particular story very much entails the moments of success that keep me going. These amazing, wild beings come into our care, usually because they have run into trouble due to human caused situations, and it is up to us to try to help them recover and get a second chance at life. As I said earlier, wildlife rehab is heartbreaking at times because we lose about half of our battles. Many times, by the time we get the animal, it’s just too late. I spend a lot of my time educating the public about who we are and what we do and what to do if they find an animal in distress. In the above mentioned counties, please call us! Even if it is a species we cannot legally assist with, we can help guide you to the proper channels depending on the situation.
Fortunately for this one unfortunate soul, all of the correct actions were taken to insure that a second chance might happen.
It was the day after Christmas, and it was raining and gray. I was trying desperately to take the day off and stay home. However, the universe said nope! I received a message from our Call Team volunteer that day, Jenifer, who relayed a message about an owl found at the wastewater treatment plant in Lake California on the border of Cottonwood and Red Bluff. I called the gentleman, Billy Schatz, and asked what was going on. He relayed to me that early that morning he found an owl stuck in the “sludge drying trays” of the plant. Yes, that is exactly what you’re thinking: all of the waste sludge in a shallow pit, drying out. So gross! I was horrified immediately. Billy then informed me that he and his coworkers had bathed the owl with Dawn dish soap and had it in a carrier in the office drying off with the heater on full blast. I was admittedly very concerned and impressed all at the same time. After all, that is exactly what we would have done, but an owl of any species is no joke to handle. I asked, “And that went OK for you?” He said, “Yes. He was pretty chill during the bath, though I know he hates me! He’s kind of a small owl.”
At this moment, my mind thought: Western Screech Owl. They are only 5-7 inches tall usually, and while they still possess the beak and talons of a raptor, they are very small and hurt less if they attack. I discussed the situation with my Raptor Team volunteers and we asked for a photo of the bird before proceeding with either a release by Billy when he left work that afternoon, or a rescue by us. If we didn’t have to be involved, then that would mean less stress for the bird.
When I saw the photo he sent, I thought two things: That bird’s feathers are still not OK and he cannot fly, and that’s a Great Horned Owl, not a small Western Screech Owl. A healthy Great Horned Owl has the ability to squeeze 500 pounds per square inch with their talons. Humans average at 80-150 psi. This is literally a murder bird! (Photo credit: Billy Schatz)
None of our Raptor Team volunteers were available that day, so this meant that this one was on me. I am the General Manager after all, and if my volunteer team cannot assist, then I go if it is a species I am trained in, and I was absolutely not willing to let that bird stay in that condition any longer. He needed another bath so he didn’t start trying to bathe himself, thus ingesting the muck on him. I made arrangements to meet Billy after he got off work to get the bird. When we met up in Cottonwood, I took into care a still slimy, tired, confused Great Horned Owl. Billy informed me with a smile that his coworker named the owl Archimedes. I told him it was a fitting name and that even though we generally do not name our wild patients, this one was special given the circumstances and that I would keep that name for him. He was in fact a smaller Great Horned Owl, which led us to vote that he was probably a male as they are smaller than females.
This is where my adventures with Archimedes began. While Billy had said that this bird was “pretty chill” during his bath in their office, my experience was much different! Archimedes had been pulled from the muck that morning and washed immediately while still exhausted from his fight in the muck for however long he had been there. It was a miracle that Billy had seen those big yellow eyes looking around in the sludge. However, by that afternoon when I began a second Dawn bath, this bird had been resting all day in a warm tote, and he was not happy that I wanted to suds him up again. Most of the adult animals we get in have been injured or are sick when they arrive, meaning that during initial exams and treatment, they are not usually at full strength. This owl however, as it turned out, was perfectly healthy and had just ended up stuck in a nasty situation. He was well fed, fast, furious, and he used all 500 psi to squeeze my leather gloved hands whenever he managed to fight hard enough or strike fast enough to catch my free hand that was trying to wash him the rest of the way. I covered his face with a light cotton napkin, but he still managed to grip my glove hard enough that I had to slip out of it to get it back from him, all while still mid-bath. Talk about a titanic struggle! I am tenacious though, and I completed his bath with success.
I was relieved to have that done, however, I had to assess his feathers and see if that was the last bath needed or if he would need another wash, which I definitely hoped not! This was when I brought out the trusty hair dryer and had the inspiration to video myself giving this owl a “spa day” treatment. 30-40 minutes of drying later, I could see that his feathers looked good. What a relief! I hydrated him thoroughly and put him in a crate with some food for close observation. (Photo credit: Raven Jeanne Capozzo- pictured with owl)
Over the next three days, I gave specific warnings to the volunteers who were feeding at our Center each day about Archimedes and his strength and attitude, his reason for being in care, and what to look for and alert me if observed. They all reported that he was very “spicy”, strong, and intimidating. That was all great news! He went to an outside aviary on the fourth day to check his flight and observe for a few more days. By the end of that week, I texted Billy and told him that Archimedes was ready to return home and I insisted that Billy be at the release. He had told me that he had attempted to rescue lots of animals from the sludge, but none of them ever made it. This was the first raptor he had ever rescued, and it was a wonderful thing that this one had lived and was going to go free.
The day of release, Archimedes stayed true to his previous attitude and he gave me a bit of a run for my money in that aviary, catching him and getting him into the carrier. He didn’t understand that I was trying to take him home, only that he was definitely done with being handled by us! We met Billy on the property of the wastewater treatment plant, a little ways away from the sludge pits, but close enough to where the bird had been found to be back in his own territory. We are required to release adult animals back where they came from within a few miles because that is where they know how to find what they need to survive. (Photo credit: Raven Jeanne Capozzo)
Billy and his coworker were amazed to see how different Archimedes looked now that his feathers were fully cleaned and fluffy. We were all grins as we watched him fly free into the sunset once more, perching high in a tree a long ways from us where he felt secure that we could not catch him again! (Photo credit: Raven Jeanne Capozzo- pictured in release photo)
It was then that the second, amazing part of this tale began. After Archimedes flew away, Billy showed me the video he had of himself wading out into the sludge with a shovel to scoop the bird out. I immediately asked his permission to use that for a post on our social media and he said yes. Then he showed me the bath time pictures he had when they hosed off Archimedes as well as his bubble bath in their sink. I melted immediately and laughed then asked permission to use those also. He readily agreed and sent them to me immediately. (Photo credits next 3: Billy Schatz)
Two days later I finally had the time to sit down and put up 3 consecutive posts on our Facebook page about this rescue. Once that was done, I messaged our volunteer Karli who manages our Instagram account and asked her to share the story there also. She put together a reel and a post about it and sent it out into the world of Instagram.
That was when the viral storm began! Archimedes story reel started gaining attention immediately, and a few hours later we were at over 100,000 views, several hundred comments, several hundred likes, and our followers kept increasing. By that evening, it had over 300,000 views and I had to Google the definition of “Going viral” to find out if that was what was happening. It said that in general it is considered going viral when a post gets between 1-2 million hits in a short period of time. By midnight that night, we were over 500,000 views and I just couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing every time I checked. When I finally forced myself to go to sleep at 1:45 am, we had 550,000 views and our followers had increased from under 200 that morning to 680.
The next morning, I heard my phone text alert around 7 am. I checked the message and it was from Karli, telling me that the story had 6.2 million views now, our followers were in the multiple thousands and climbing, and other animal groups had reached out asking permission to share the story on their social media links as long as they tagged us. I couldn’t believe it. In less than 24 hours, we had gone viral! This is a first for me, and it is also a first for Shasta Wildlife. We were stunned and elated. As of my writing this, it has been 8 days since we put that post up on Instagram and we now have 27,000 followers and the reel has been viewed 33,610,000 times! This also led to interviews with the local media outlets, KRCR Channel 7, and the Record Searchlight.
Why this one? What was different about this rescue story? That was asked of me a lot in the first few days, and I decided that this one must be relatable to a lot of people in the world right now. This bird was literally stuck neck deep in poop sludge, and that video of a sludge covered owl must have struck people with a “me too buddy!” note. Then, his bath photos with those huge eyes and soggy body hit that “me too buddy!” button again. The fact that this bird was in a “crappy” situation and was given a helping couple of hands from us humans who are trying to make a difference and save them if we can, and successfully returned to his wild life, seems to be what hit everyone in the feels.
As a small, local non-profit, obviously our hope is that this story helps the community discover us, what we do, and why. Hopefully, this attention helps generate support in the community to keep us operating. In the 14 days that Archimedes was in our care, it cost us $84 for his food. This may not seem like a lot, however, this bird was with us a very short time compared with our usual injured or orphaned patients, and he was only one patient. We receive between 700-1000 animals per year of a wide variety of species with specific diets. You can imagine that the cost adds up fast. I invite you to follow this blog as well as our social media pages for more stories to come!
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(Photo credit: Raven Jeanne Capozzo- Archimedes in recovery at Shasta Wildlife)
