A GOOD Samaritan, a caring vet and a group of animal welfare crusaders have combined to give an injured goshawk, nicknamed Steve, a new lease on life.
After a bit of TLC from all of the above and a few weeks recuperating from a broken wing, Steve was last week released back into the wild.
The ailing bird was found near Dalveen by Pozieres local Tom Dachs, who immediately contacted the Granite Belt Wildlife Carers.
They advised him to take the bird to a vet, and at Stanthorpe Vet Care Erica Kennedy identified the problem and set about repairing the broken wing.
From there Steve went to the home of Granite Belt Wildlife Carers president Betty Balch, just outside Stanthorpe, to recuperate and then went back to Erica to be X-rayed and have the pin taken out.
After a couple of weeks for the bird to rest, Tom returned to release Steve back into the wild.
Steve’s recovery was the latest in a string of success stories for the wildlife carers, although he was the first goshawk to go through the system.
Betty said the group helped native animals and was more used to dealing with the likes of kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, possums, gliders and even quolls.
The Granite Belt Wildlife Carers usually have around 40 members and are one of the few groups in that space that have fund-raisers to buy food for the animals in their care.
“We have to do that,” Betty explained.
“Food is very expensive. A bag of food to rear a kangaroo is $500 and the food we feed the possums sells for $30 a kilogram.
“If we didn’t raise money, pensioners could not afford to be carers.”
Betty said the group was in the process of building a proper flight aviary so it could better house the likes of eagles and hawks.
