By Rick LaFrombois
Wausau Daily Herald

Thu, Aug 5, 2004

A quick response by residents and the Wausau Fire Department saved an osprey from a watery grave Wednesday.

The Marathon County Sheriff's Department received a 911 call from the Waters Edge Cafe Restaurant just before 7:30 p.m. about a bird, possibly an eagle, floating in the Wisconsin River and heading toward the Wisconsin Public Service dam. Emily Volpe, a waitress at Waters Edge, 150 E. Stewart Ave., said it was her family that first noticed the bird.

"They were sitting out on the patio and they saw a bird flapping its wings, and then they saw the white head and they thought it was an eagle, so they said, ‘Go call the police,'" said Volpe, 17.

Lt. Rick Schultz and firefighter Pat Moucha of the Fire Department arrived at the scene with an inflatable boat, a landing net and a large, plastic bucket.

More than a half-dozen residents had been tracking the bird since it was first sighted, and they led the firefighters to the bird, which was floating face up in the river less than 100 yards from the dam.

"If they didn't tell us where it is, it would have gone over the dam," Schultz said.

The firefighters made their way down a steep, rocky slope through thick brush. Schultz then leaned out over the river with the landing net as Moucha held him to prevent him from falling in.

"It would come to the shore right to you, like it wanted help," Moucha said.

Schultz was able to net the bird, which authorities later determined to be an osprey. He grabbed the bird and put it in the bucket.

"I grabbed him by his feet, and he didn't try to bite me at all," Schultz said. "I think that poor bird is out of energy." Like eagles, ospreys also are raptors. They are more rare than eagles in Wisconsin and are better at preying on fish, said Melissa Hiles, a worker with Raptor Education Group International, a nonprofit organization that nurses sick or injured birds back to health and educates the public about them.

There are about 400 pairs of osprey in the state, fewer than half the number of eagles. The bird is listed as a threatened species in Wisconsin.

Marge Gibson, the executive director of Raptor Education Group International, asked Hiles to pick up the bird at the police department and drive it to the group's rehabilitation center in Antigo, where its blood will be tested to determine its health.

The osprey is the only bird in Wisconsin that plunges straight into water feet-first and uses it eyes, which are adapted to see underwater, to capture its food, said Hiles, 22, of Wausau.

"They're really so intelligent," she said as she held the osprey in her hands. "They can quickly tell if you're there to help or harm them." Authorities are not sure how the bird, which Hiles thinks might be an adult female, ended up in the river. It bore no obvious external injuries.

Ospreys can't swim and have been known to drown, especially when their talons become stuck in too large a fish and are then unable to fly away.

But Hiles thinks illness that might have put the bird in danger.

"She's very thin. She could be sick," she said. "The breastbone is sticking out. That shouldn’t happen." Hiles drove the osprey to Antigo on Wednesday night, where the group will care for the bird until it is healthy enough to be released into the wild.

Osprey facts

The osprey is a large, powerful bird of prey. The birds usually grow to about 23 inches tall and have a five-foot wingspan when they are mature. Their coloring is black and brown on top, and white below with a white head and tail on mature birds that sometimes cause them to be confused with bald eagles. More facts about the osprey: