This is the great story of the day. An eagle owl was rescued by Gard firefighters on Tuesday afternoon. The raptor, injured on the left wing, was in fact stuck between, on one side the railway and, on the other, the county 980 which connects Sauveterre to Villeneuve-lès-Avignon.
It is from there, moreover, that the firefighters came who saved the bird in extremis. “As he could walk, when he saw us coming, he ran off towards the railwaysays with tenderness one of the owl’s guardian angels, Chief Warrant Officer Bruno Richard. We got it back somehow, with a sheet. And when we were leaving the railway line, a freight train was coming… so luckily we got there, otherwise, it was the end of the bird and we… we could have been in pain! “
Treated in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
After spending the night at the Villeneuve-lès-Avignon barracks, the raptor was entrusted to the care center of the Ornithological Park of Pont de Gau, in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.
Me, I don’t worry. They’re going to fix it, it’s pretty tough! It is a bird of 4-5 kilos and 45 centimeters high, Chief Warrant Officer Bruno Richard.
The eagle owl is a protected species and the largest nocturnal raptor in the world.