Back in August, a game warden in Pennsylvania responded to a call about an animal trapped in a manure pit on a local farm. Approaching the smelly area, the warden found who he’d been looking for — a distressed red-tailed hawk stuck in the muck.
Animal experts at Raven Ridge held their breath and welcomed their stinky guest.
“I could smell the bird before I saw it,” rehabilitator Tracie Young told The Dodo.
Rescuers let the bird rest in a quarantine area for a few days before they set about the tricky task of washing the manure out of her feathers. They gave her pain medicine, fluids and antibiotics, along with plenty of food, which she gratefully gobbled.
Soon enough, the hawk prepared for release back into the wild.
Watching the hawk soar away, Young wished the bird could’ve always known that she’d be OK.
“You want to tell them, ‘Now, do you see why we did what we had to do?’” Young said. “I know you were mad and everything else, but this was our goal, to get you back in the air once again.”