Injured eagle spared after man refuses to abandon it
'Oh-Joe' still alive despite initial GNWT demand sick bird be returned to wild
Erin Steele
Northern News Services
Monday, June 6, 2016
WHATI/LAC LA MARTRE
A bald eagle with a broken wing, dubbed 'Oh-Joe' should have been left to die, according to an official with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, but there is no way the man from Whati who rescued it would ever consider leaving his "buddy" behind.
'Oh-Joe' the eagle, who was given the nickname after his namesake Joseph Moosenose rescued him last week, has been surviving off fish fillets while staying in the shed behind Moosenose's home. The territorial Department of Environment and Natural Resources had plans to ship the bird to Yellowknife as of the afternoon of June 2 after Moosenose refused the government's request to take him back to the wild. - photo courtesy of Facebook |
Joe Moosenose of Whati was coming back by boat from an outpost camp around 4 p.m. June 1 when he saw the bird of prey on the shore.
"I thought it was eating fish and then when I looked at it again, its wing was just flopping around on the right-hand side," Moosenose told News/North by phone.
He and his spouse Theresa Romie deliberated about what to do with the wounded bird before Moosenose decided to save it.
"(The eagle) started heading in the bush and I started chasing him around. I had a blanket with me so I just throw the blanket around his head, covered him and then I just picked him up and brought him back to home," said Moosenose.
The man put the bird in his shed and fed it fish fillets but it wasn't moving around much and was keeping its head lowered. Unsure of what to do, Moosenose said he spoke with a local representative of the department of environment who, after conferring with the head office in Yellowknife, told Moosenose to bring the eagle back to where he found it.
Moosenose likened this to leaving an injured friend out in the wild.
"You can't just leave your buddy out there. You have to do something," said Moosenose.
"I got a heart for all things. The way somebody says to put him back, I don't feel too good about it so I want to do something about it."
Adrian Lizotte, a renewable resources officer with the department, confirmed Moosenose was told to bring the bird back to the shore.
"What they should have done is let nature take its course. It's unfortunate but these kinds of things do happen in the wild. Animals do fight with each other and do get injured and will die without us knowing," said Lizotte.
He added taking a bird into captivity contravenes the NWT Wildlife Act, which could result in a charge and automatic court appearance before a judge. In this case, Lizotte said the department is not pursuing any charges but he does want the public to understand the law.
"The people of the Northwest Territories have to realize they can't be picking live animals out of the bush because it contravenes our wildlife act of keeping birds in captivity."
Nonetheless, after Moosenose's refusal to return the injured bird to the wild, an agreement was reached to hand to the bird over to wildlife officials who shipped the eagle to Yellowknife on June 3 where it was expected to be assessed by a territorial government veterinarian.
"We don't want (Moosenose and family) to be in possession of it. It's at the stage now where we just want to bring it into Yellowknife ... to get it under our care," said Lizotte earlier in the week.
"They seem like they're really wanting to rehabilitate the eagle themselves. We're not sure if they would release it."
Before handing the eagle over to authorities, Moosenose said he would've nursed the bird back to health if he could.
"I'm willing to do something - I just can't leave him," he said. "I wouldn't mind keeping him too but I've got to nurse him, I've got to fix his wing but I don't know how to do all that so I might just ship him out."
He said the eagle was named 'Oh-Joe' because that's his nickname.
"'Oh-Joe', because that's my name," he said with a laugh.
Rob Hope is a senior raptor rehabilitator at the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in British Columbia. The organization specializes in rehabilitating birds of prey. He said the organization would take the bird - even pay the cost to ship it to the Lower Mainland from Yellowknife - but there are hoops to jump through.
"We can't really do anything until we get an OK to export that bird from your (territory)," said Hope.
He said the territory's environment department would have to sign off on an export permit - which would need to be authorized by the territorial government's veterinarian - and then Hope would have to get an import permit from the B.C. government. To send the bird back to the territory, the process would be reversed.
"We're running into interprovincial bureaucratic crap," said Hope, speaking about the general circumstances of transporting wildlife between jurisdictions.
If the bird was deemed able to be rehabilitated, said Lizotte, the GNWT would likely send it to a rehabilitative facility at the University of Saskatchewan. The fate of the bird should be known by around June 5 or 6, according to Lizotte.
Hope said if the bird was found just inside the B.C. border, it would be a completely different story.
"We could get it on a plane and to us no problem. We're here to help the bird. We want to help them but we also have to be careful of laws and restrictions and legalities because we see over 600 birds of prey each year and we can't jeopardize that for one."
