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Hey, fatso!
An obese female hawk weighing a whopping 2 pounds was diagnosed as “too darn fat to fly” after a blissful few weeks of eating too many Virginia chickens and sleeping for hours on end.
The hefty red-shouldered hawk was found by a homeowner grounded in their driveway and was swiftly rescued by the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke team who made the alarming diagnosis.
“On arrival, we checked for the usual suspects: Broken bones, lead toxicity, eye issues, head trauma, emaciation, bruising from any kind of collision or altercation,” the center wrote on Facebook.
The wildlife center said the hawk was in good health, except for one thing — she was too fat.
“The diagnosis: At over 910g [2 pounds] in weight, she was too darn fat to fly! We couldn’t even palpate her keel due to the heavy layer of fat covering it,” the center said.
It’s extremely rare for wild animals to become obese without human intervention, according to the wildlife center — and red-shoulder hawks typically weigh around 1 to 1.5 pounds.
“So how could this happen? ” the stumped facility questioned. “Was she a lost falconry bird? Someone was feeding her? Was she an escaped (illegally-kept) captive hawk?”
After ruling out those questions, the rescue facility asked the person who found the chubby bird if it could have devoured any free-range chickens in the neighborhood.
A few weeks later, the mystery was solved — when the homeowner’s neighbor confirmed their chickens had been “disappearing at an alarming rate over the last few weeks.”
“This queen was picking off the buffet of easy prey set out before her, eating her fill, and then snoozing in the trees nearby until she was ready to eat again,” the center wrote, noting that “the chickens were let out in the morning, she ate another, and repeat.”
“After weeks of repeating this feasting and sleeping, it’s no wonder she got too fat to fly!”
Although the wildlife center joked “this story is kind of funny, unless you’re the chickens getting eaten,” there is a “sobering reality” behind hawk’s plump diagnosis.
“This is a man-made issue, and this could have had a sadder ending if she had been found by a larger predator instead of the finder. Without flight, she is extremely vulnerable,” the center explained.
“Moral of the story: Don’t feed wildlife … directly OR indirectly.”
