Red-tailed hawks are among the most common birds of prey in North America, with abundant populations in Pennsylvania, but finding ones with feathers that aren't brown and dark red is considered unusual.
For one Pennsylvania Game Commission warden, this recently happened by accident — and it will save the life of a hawk that was somehow covered in cooking oil.
The Raven Ridge Wildlife Center in Lancaster County shared a story on Facebook about a hawk that was found last month in Mercersburg, Franklin County, near the Maryland border in central Pennsylvania. The person who found the bird initially noticed that she had remained in a low branch without moving for three days straight. The bird had light feathering, suggesting it might have been a juvenile bald eagle.
After a few days, the person who first spotted the bird safely removed her from the branch with a towel. Unable to fly or even remain steady on her limbs, she was kept in a cage until game warden Philip Bietsch was able to retrieve her on March 25.
Bietsch, still unsure of the bird's species, drove her to the Raven Ridge Wildlife Center to receive care.
That's where it was determined the bird was a red-tailed hawk with leucism, a rare genetic condition that results in a lack of pigmentation in all or part of an animal's body. Leucism is distinct from albinism, which is caused specifically by the inability to produce melanin. Animals with albinism may appear to have red eyes, whereas leucism does not affect eye color. The term leucism comes from the Greek word leukos, meaning "white."
More common examples of leucistic animals are some American paint horses, like piebalds, which have splotchy patches of white and black on their bodies.
An exam at the wildlife center determined that the female red-tailed hawk had been covered in a cooking oil substance that had matted its feathers, preventing it from flying. It's unclear how the hawk got covered in oil. She had become hypothermic and lost some weight by the time she was brought to the wildlife center, where she was cleaned, hand-fed and rehabilitated over the last few weeks.
The wildlife center shared multiple pictures of the bird on Facebook.
"We feel that she is on the road to recovery and is making progress every day," the Raven Ridge staff said. "We are hopeful for a full recovery and to get her back into the skies once again."
Bietsch told USA Today that the bird was the first leucistic red-tailed hawk he had ever seen.
Given the large population of red-tailed hawks in the U.S., and that leucism is dependent on population size, it's likely that there's a greater incidence of the condition among red-tailed hawks than other species. The U.S. National Park Service reported another leucistic red-tailed hawk that was found injured and was rehabilitated in Georgia in 2011.
Fortunately, the red-tailed hawk found in Mercersburg appears on track to continue her life in the wild.
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April 11, 2023 at 04:28AM
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