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Snowy owl rescued by police in Sudbury, named ‘Copper’

A snowy owl perched outside the Washington Post offices in Washington, D.C., stopped passers-by in their tracks on Friday, January 24. The bird became a momentary media sensation as WP staff rushed outside to get shots of it. Credit: Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post

Last Thursday, police officers in Sudbury, Ontario spotted a weak, emaciated snowy owl behind a shopping centre.

Ravens were diving at the frail bird.

The officers contacted Judy Miller for the Wild at Heart Animal Refuge Centre.

"They didn’t know if it was injured or what was wrong with it," Miller told CBC News.

When she arrived on the scene, the bird was sitting on a deep snow bank.

"When I went towards him, he tried to fly," she recalled. "But he was so weak he had no lift. But he did a head dive all the way down the snow bank."

Miller said police had to pull her from the snow bank after she fell through it, trying to reach the bird.

The rescue was successful, and Miller brought the owl to the refuge centre where vets determined he had no injuries but was suffering from malnourishment and severe dehydration, likely because the harsh winter made it especially difficult to find mice.

"He was so weak. He was just lying there," she said of hooking the owl up to an IV. "He didn’t even grip with his claws — that’s how weak he was."

Gloria Morissette, animal care manager at Wild at Heart, told the Sudbury Star that the owl should have weighed two kilograms and weighed in at about 1.35 kilograms instead

Miller told CBC News that she's optimistic about the bird's future. The bird is already standing upright, something he couldn't do when he was first brought in. And on Sunday, he ate his first dead mouse.

The snowy owl has been named "Copper" in honour of the officers who found him and called for help.