Kentucky tree service workers save large bird trapped in tree for several days
By Jatara McGee
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EDGEWOOD, Kentucky (WLWT) — A couple of northern Kentucky tree trimmers saved a bird that was trapped in a large tree for days.
It happened last week in Ft. Mitchell.
“Whenever we get a weird call like this, if we can do it, we’re on it,” said Tiler Wright, who works for Clark Tree Service out of Edgewood.
He and his boss Preston Clark seem to have a knack for animal rescues.
“We’ve rescued a few cats, rescued a drone,” Wright said. “Squirrels, too,” Clark added.
On Thursday, they had finished up for the day when they got a call to help rescue a bird that had been stuck in a tree for six days on Orphanage Road in Ft. Mitchell.
Wright, who’s nicknamed “Cowboy,” said a black vulture was about 70 feet up a 100-foot tree.
“So my first instinct was to go up to the top of the tree, tie in high, come down and then figure out how the bird is tangled up in the limb,” Wright explained.
He managed to free the bird. Clark and someone from the local animal shelter swooped in on the ground to capture it.
“We were getting multiple calls from multiple people. Everyone was trying to pitch together a way, a plan to get this bird out of that tree,” said Cindy Alverson, executive director of RAPTOR, Inc. in Milford. “They went the extra mile. They had never handled a bird before. So I was sort of worried, like this is a vulture, and I didn’t know what condition it was in, but they’re very feisty.”
RAPTOR stands for Regional Association for the Protection and Treatment of Raptors, which is a nonprofit organization that rehabilitates injured birds of prey. It’s the only group of its kind north of Louisville and South of the Dayton area.
“This bird was extremely lucky. Every day it was getting more and more critical,” Alverson said. “We’re having to hand-feed it at this point. But it is standing, which is monumental for upside down for six days.”
The rescue organization is most concerned about the bird’s left wing. The ultimate goal is to rehabilitate it and release it back into the wild.
“We’re here to help everybody. Bottom line,” Clark said.
“Here to serve the community any way we can. Even if it gets a little hairy, we’re on it,” Wright said.
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