Five rehabilitated raptors are back where they belong in their natural habitat after being released Tuesday morning by the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation, alongside one of the rescuers, AltaLink.
“It’s always really an uplifting and exhilarating experience for us to send these birds back into the wild every year,” Colin Weir, the managing director for the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation, said.
“We’ve been doing it for forty years and the excitement never wears off.”
One red-tailed hawk, one short-eared owl and three great-horned owls were set free at Cottonwood Park overlooking the Oldman River Valley.
Two of the birds were previously rescued by AltaLink employees as part of a continuing relationship between the electricity company and the Birds of Prey Foundation, which is known for its raptor rescue and conservation work.
AltaLink has been working with the foundation for more than a decade now to help protect birds, who are primarily affected by the electric transmission system through collisions, electrocutions and nesting.
“We don’t receive any government operating subsidies, we’re relying just on donations and AltaLink is one of our very appreciated and generous corporate supporters,” Weir said. “There’s always times when their staff are out doing field work, driving up and down the roads here in southern Alberta, and they actually bring injured birds to us,” Weir said.
“We’re one of the leading utilities that actually have an avian protection program, so our teams are trained to be on the lookout for birds and if they need some assistance, we’re happy to bring them in and bring them into birds of prey or whatever centre is close by,” Johanne Picard-Thompson, senior vice-president for corporate services at AltaLink, said.
The Avian Protection Plan teaches employees how to help injured birds they encounter while working on transmission power lines and substations.
“It’s a variety of different rescues, sometimes they’ve basically hit into a line and have fallen down, so we pick them up at that point,” Picard-Thompson said.
“Sometimes they nest in our substations and we find them and then try to move them safely as well depending on what their situation is,” she added.
The Birds of Prey Foundation is closed to visitors for the season, however it does accept injured birds at its Coaldale centre year round. The foundation also relies on donations and volunteers to sustain its animal-saving work.