By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The stress of injury is already enough for wild raptors. Now they will have a new place to rest and recuperate. Earlier this week, the Brit Spaugh Zoo in Great Bend announced a new raptor rehabilitation enclosure was complete. Zoo Curator Ashley Burdick said the Great Bend Zoological Society purchased a building for Sturdi-Bilt, and Richard Bodine from the park department and zoo staff turned it into five new enclosures.
"Those enclosures are going to be used for a raptor rehab, so when people find owls, eagles, falcons, hawks, anything like that on the side of the road or injured on their property, they bring them to us often," she said. "Those are to help them recuperate and start building up their strength before we try to release them back into the wild."
Zoo staff partitioned off the new building using materials already on hand and the building budget. The five new enclosures will replace three enclosures that were more than 15 years old.
Staff can test flight some of the smaller birds in small cages at the zoo, and they're working with the zoological society to build bigger cages for the bigger birds. The goal is to get raptors back up to speed so they can once again thrive in the wild.
"We also do, it's called creance flying," Burdick said. "We attach some anklets to the birds, and it's essentially like flying a kite but you're flying a bird to see if they can get any lift and turn, and do things like that. When we feel they're comfortable, that's when we release them back into the wild."
Bird numbers have been down due to another run of avian influenza, but Burdick said the zoo typically helps rehabilitate between 30 and 100 raptors each year.