Hawks, owls killed in fire at Edmonton area bird rescue
Almost a dozen hawks and owls are dead — and an Edmonton-area bird rescue group is facing thousands of dollars in repairs — after a devastating fire at a rehabilitation centre for orphaned and injured raptors.
The Alberta Society for Injured Birds of Prey is fundraising for repairs after a fire at its rescue facility near Sherwood Park on Wednesday.
A hawk house was burned to the ground and the facility's largest aviary building sustained significant damage.
Eleven birds died in the fire.
Rescue workers said the fire started around noon, and is believed to be electrical.
"There was no time for a rescue. The building burned too fast," said Caleb Corcoran, a long-time volunteer with the rescue group. "It seems like wiring in the building or something went faulty on us."
He said the hawk house was gutted, and what remains of it will be knocked down over the weekend.
"We'll be smashing and chopping up mostly burned wood this weekend and starting to clean up the mess."
The group's co-founder and the property's caretaker, Eva Grantmyre, didn't realize the fire had started, Corcoran said, adding that someone nearby must have seen smoke and called the fire department.
"Eva was surprised with the fire truck in the yard," Corcoran said. "She didn't even know anything was burning at the time. She had just decided to try and have a nap and woke up to the dogs barking at the fire trucks in the yard."
The fire spread quickly through the adjoining aviary building, but volunteers were able to save all but one bird inside. They couldn't get the hawks and owls in the hawk house out in time.
The hawk house, a 100-foot long outbuilding, had been used to house rescue birds through the winter months for the last 34 years, said Carl Grantmyre who co-founded the agency.
"The building was old. It was tinder dry ... and the wiring apparently gave way and it was gone in twenty minutes," he said.
The building provided birds with a safe place to regain their strength before being released back into the wild. It could provide refuge to up to 40 birds at once.
'It's pretty sad'
Some of the birds that perished in the fire had been with the rescue for years, including a red-tailed hawk named Marion, which had served as an educational bird for the agency for more than a decade.
"Some were permanent residents, some were educational birds and some were birds that were getting closer to release," Corcoran said.
"It's pretty sad."
The rescue agency has launched a GoFundMe campaign with the hope of fundraising the estimated $50,000 needed to rebuild the hawk house.
The surviving birds have been safely relocated to other buildings on the property, Corcoran said, but the rescue's capacity to care for injured or abandoned birds has been greatly diminished.
"It's not easy," Grantmyre said. "Eva's pretty upset. It was an old building and it just wore out. I don't know how we could have prepared for something like that."
