Hawk on Sign in Carlsbad

Anatomy of rescuing a wild hawk in Carlsbad

On January 9, 2014 I rescued a Wildhawk in Carlsbad California. The hawk had been in a fight and was missing its beak and had one bloody eye. My friend Tim and I picked it up with a towel and set it on my lap in the front seat of his Ford F150 truck. We got about 10 minutes up Highway 101 and the hawk started to flap its wings and I had to let it go as it sat on the floor of the car. We wrapped it up again in the towel and then another five minutes later it got loose again and was sitting in the backseat. On the next attempt we opened up the door and the hawk flew out and landed on the top of the sign on the side of the road. From here we called the Humane Society and waited for them to show up to try and rescue the hawk. They could not rescue it and felt it was safer to just let it stay there and fly off on its own.

That was one of the most incredible days as the hawk needed help and while we were able to handle it for a while it eventually did what it supposed to do and remained in the wild.