Grounded bird of prey deemed 'too fat to fly' after endless feasting, sleeping in Virginia
The hawk weighed so much, the techs couldn't palpate her keel, a critical step in verifying the hawk's health status.
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ROANOKE, Va.– A hawk that was discovered on a driveway in Roanoke, Virginia, was unable to fly despite no visible ailments, baffling wildlife center workers.
RSHA 26-2599, a mature female adult red-shouldered hawk was discovered about a mile from the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke, and brought into their care because she couldn't fly.
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RSHA 26-2599 was found on a driveway in Virginia.
(Southwest VSouthwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke/Facebookirginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke / FOX Weather)
When she was brought into the facility, they checked for everything that could be wrong: broken bones, lead toxicity, eye issues, head trauma, emaciation, bruising from a collision or altercation, and everything came back normal.
However, one thing was off, and that was her weight.
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The hawk weighed so much, the techs couldn't palpate her keel, a critical step in verifying the hawk's health status.
The red-shouldered hawk that was deemed "too fat to fly."
(Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke/Facebook / FOX Weather)
Female red-shouldered hawks are supposed to be no more than 1.5 pounds, and RSHA 26-2599 weighed in at a whopping 910 grams, or a little over 2 pounds.
Her diagnosis? Too fat to fly, Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke said.
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The hawk was 910 grams, very overweight for her species.
(Southwest VirgSouthwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke/Facebookinia Wildlife Center of Roanoke / FOX Weather)
They questioned how this could happen. Was she a lost falconry bird? Was a human feeding her? Was she an escaped illegally-kept captive hawk?
To try and get an answer, they reached out to the woman who found the hawk.
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"We asked the finder if any of her neighbors had free-ranging chickens she could be eating," Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke said.
Nothing was wrong with the hawk other than her weight.
(Southwest VSouthwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke/Facebookirginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke / FOX Weather)
A few weeks later, she got back to them, revealing that her neighbors had free-roaming chickens which were "disappearing at an alarming rate over the last few weeks."
The wildlife center deduced that the hawk was finding her food the easy way, and "picking off the buffet of easy prey set out before her, eating her fill, and then snoozing in the trees nearby until she was ready to eat again," they said.
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Every morning when the chickens were let outside, the hawk would snag one when she was hungry again.
After weeks of doing this, she put on so much weight that she just couldn't fly.
The bird was catching and eating free-range chickens.
(Southwest ViSouthwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke/Facebookrginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke / FOX Weather)
While a funny story, Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke said, it's also very serious.
"This is a man-made issue, and this could have had a sadder ending if she had been found by a larger predator instead of the finder," they said. "Without flight, she is extremely vulnerable."
The message the wildlife center wants to come from the story is don't feed wildlife, whether directly or indirectly, and covered runs might be the best for those with chickens in their yard.