r/todayilearned • u/JEBV • 2d ago
TIL a snowy owl once flew from the Artic to Honolulu, and was seen flying around the international airport. It would be shot the same day by wildlife services.
https://www.civilbeat.org/2012/01/details-emerge-about-snowy-owl-holiday-death/308
u/QuestGiver 2d ago
Wildlife services didn't give a hoot.
78
u/1DownFourUp 2d ago
More like wildlife disservice, amiright?
-138
u/georgito555 1d ago
Damn I can't believe you funny ass redditors don't get laid
77
u/WretchedLocket 1d ago
Don't worry. Your mom takes care of all of us
3
-102
8
u/Khaldara 1d ago
“He knows how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop, he’s too dangerous to be left alive”
63
u/Rudythecat07 1d ago
A lot of people here didn't read the article. Or maybe they did and have no empathy. It sounds like the USDA team called to deal with the owl were tore the fuck up about it. They hated doing it, but they had to, otherwise hundreds of people could die. That's rough.
-136
u/7heWafer 1d ago
Never heard of tranqs apparently. Soooo torn up 🙄🙄
67
u/1CEninja 1d ago
Yeah except that's not a thing. Birds are extremely sensitive to such things, and careful general anesthesia provided by a trained professional in an extremely controlled environment has a very high rate of the bird never waking up. Surgery is terrifying for bird owners.
Shooting a bird with a tranq gun isn't going to have a different long term effect than shooting it with bullets.
You can pretty much only tranquilize, using a gun, large animals.l and even that doesn't work even remotely like it does in movies and videogames.
-156
u/7heWafer 1d ago
We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas
107
u/1CEninja 1d ago
So you're doing a couple of things right now. Firstly, you're demonstrating significant ignorance. You are making it very obvious that you don't know anything about animal care. Secondly, you are belittling the anguish of people who *do* know about animal care and genuinely love animals who were forced to do something they felt was ethically horrible for the safety of the airport.
These folks care, and you shitting on them makes you the asshole not them.
Shut the fuck up.
55
u/whatisagoodnamefort 1d ago
Dang man, you figured it out - why didn’t all those highly educated and trained individuals just give you a fuckin call before trying to do their job??
15
u/LoLFlore 1d ago
Just put the thing that will immediately launch itself into the sky to sleep. Thatll do it safely.
Yeah, those knockout darts applied with exacting dosage that will put them to sleep so smoothly and quickly they dont fall from their perch from the force of the shot or from the disorientation of being shot nor are they damaged by the fucking shot they got hit by.
Youve cleaely never been near a bird.
Have you even interacted with any animals at all without glass between you and it?
142
u/334078 2d ago
I get the argument to kill it, but damn, humans kinda suck.
34
u/92Codester 2d ago
What was the argument?
167
u/triangulardot 2d ago
Today I learned how few people know that airports routinely shoot birds to reduce the chance of them hitting a plane and causing a crash!
25
u/pinkynarftroz 1d ago
Theoretically what would happen if it were bald eagles flying around the airport?
23
u/rhineauto 1d ago
Bald eagles (and other birds of prey) are used at some airports to keep other birds away.
8
6
u/AngusLynch09 1d ago
They're just oversized seagulls, anyway.
9
u/Joshua_Evergreen 1d ago
That sound like squeaky shopping cart wheels.
12
u/ihvnnm 1d ago
Really? I always thought they sounded like a red-tail hawk.
2
u/gonzo5622 1d ago
The chirp like little birds. It’s pretty funny because in my head I always thought they sounded like birds of prey.
3
u/Beeoor143 1d ago
The one time I met a bald eagle up-close, it kept making grunting sounds like a pig. Granted, it was at a wildlife rehab center, so there was probably something wrong with it. Still funny and unexpected to hear though.
0
-5
u/indefiniteretrieval 1d ago
Imagine if they shot an America eagle airplane by mistake...
I dunno, boss said to take out the American Eagle ....
1
u/falconfalcon7 17h ago
Surely an owl wouldn't take out a plane? A flock of geese however...
1
u/triangulardot 11h ago
It’s mostly about them getting sucked into the engines and causing a major failure.
-24
u/Unlimitles 1d ago
lol I see now why we are called a parasite, plague or infection on this planet.
lol for us to live we literally have to kill other things….thats an actual parasite.
We will give an excuse to kill other things than to put some effort into working together or toward a better alternative that may temporarily inconvenience us.
5
2
u/giantpandamonium 16h ago
Actually your literal definition of parasite is wrong. Parasites typically try not to kill their hosts, although some inevitably do. We’d be more of a predator in your analogy. Most species on this earth rely on the death of others to survive - whether directly or indirectly.
20
35
u/EverydayVelociraptor 2d ago
"We should kill it". - person A
"Yeah, that tracks". - person B.
11
36
u/Sesemebun 2d ago
They shot it because it could’ve gotten sucked into an aircraft engine. Read the article
18
2
-16
u/CutHerOff 1d ago
I could get sucked in to an aircraft engine are you going to shoot me?
21
6
u/Campeador 1d ago
The difference is the aircraft would already be grounded if you went into the engine.
1
u/Campeador 1d ago
The difference is the aircraft would already be grounded if you went into the engine.
1
7
9
u/bagpipesfart 1d ago
It could get sucked into an aircraft engine and also had it left the airport it would’ve been considered an invasive species
-11
5
7
u/triangulardot 2d ago
Today I learned how few people know that airports routinely shoot birds to reduce the chance of them hitting a plane and causing a crash!
3
u/snootyworms 1d ago
Truly I didn't know bird strikes were even a problem until the recent Jeju crash with the double bird strikes. I always assumed that planes were engineered in such a way to account for bird strikes, since 'well of course they're gonna hit birds, the sky's where all the birds are!'
1
u/hamstervideo 17h ago
Did you somehow miss the plan that miraculously landed in the Hudson River after a bird strike?
1
-14
u/One_Anything_2279 2d ago
Probably because it would largely be considered an invasive species in that environment, a predator with nothing to prey on it.
16
7
u/RepresentativeOk2433 2d ago
A single owl wouldn't be a big deal. A breeding pair would be an ecological nightmare.
0
u/GrimaceThundercock 1d ago
There could easily have been a breeding pair. What if there was another owl two miles away that nobody noticed?
Your comment assumes that if there was another owl then it would be noticed. That is a dangerous assumption.
-2
-13
u/nameyname12345 2d ago
Jeez buddy we were being invaded!!!!/s
Seriously only thing I can think of is maybe they were worried it would get sucked into an engine but even that seems farfetched
26
u/Sadly_NotAPlatypus 2d ago
Former airplane mechanic here. They absolutely shoot birds at airports. The first time you clean a birdstrike you'll get it. And sometimes the bird caused so much damage the engine needs to be repaired and so you pull the whole engine to send it to the repair depot.
8
u/hopefullynottoolate 1d ago
i vaguely remember having to shut down a runway for i think an endangered owl species at our airport. im not sure it was exactly endangered but there was a reason we werent allowed to mess with them/it. i think there may have been more than one.
4
u/edthach 1d ago
I mean, did it seem far-fetched that it could be an invasive species? They're extremely efficient birds of prey and could wreak havoc on the local ecology. They're raptors, we have like 6 movies telling us why raptors on islands that they shouldn't be on is a bad idea.
-1
u/nameyname12345 1d ago
While I agree it's a bird. Kind of hard to say it's not their habitat when they can choose to fly there. Either way it's down for the safety of the plane and people aboard and I think we can all agree when flying we would prefer a bird strike free flight. We didn't put it there it flew there. Might be invasive but so are we with that logic.
18
u/TheGrayBox 2d ago
Remember when the double birdstrike incident in Korea a few months ago killed 179 people?
22
18
u/Sesemebun 2d ago edited 1d ago
Dan Meisenzahl told Civil Beat that Honolulu Airport contracts the job of making sure Hawaii’s runaways are free of birds out to the USDA’s Wildlife Services Division. The officials drive around the airports all day chasing off birds that could get caught in the engines of planes and cause them to crash. Despite a USDA official’s best efforts to chase the owl away, it wasn’t moving, saidMeisenzahl.
It would be so awesome if people actually read the article instead of getting angy over a vague title. This is completely standard procedure. Some airports even have falconers to deal with birds on taxiways… Someone here will probably still say it was cruel and it’s better to chance a plane crash though.
-5
u/Prestigious_Beat6310 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sounds like Hawaii DLNR "omg one snowy owl inexplicably got here? Shoot it!, oh well these coqui frogs kinda got a foothold, not anything we can do. Hey let's bring in rhinoceros beetles!"
-1
2d ago
[deleted]
36
u/Nemesis_Ghost 2d ago
It was at an airport & a danger to the planes. They tried to chase it off & capture it, but were unable to after a couple of hours. They made the decision to shoot it only afterwards, but even then still did not want to.
1
u/ClassicPart 1d ago
If only there was an article you could have bothered to read which explained it.
-2
2d ago
[deleted]
8
u/Helgafjell4Me 2d ago
No, article said it was because it was too close to the airport and considered a threat to air traffic:
The graceful, two-foot long bird, with white wings embroidered in black, was considered a threat to airplanes taking off from the airport
3
-3
1
-21
u/ipresnel 2d ago
we kill everything . Every single thing on earth. Every single thing. Ming the Clam. Every....thing
1
u/nameyname12345 2d ago
Hey that clam died during enhanced interrogation about its age! We fired Bob as he was using English and we all told him they don't speak English without a little mermaid running around! It doesn't have to be Ariel we don't think but you definitely need a mermaid! Otherwise we can't communicate!/s
-2
u/EpicSteak 1d ago
We are from the government and are here to help.
GUNSHOT
Is there anything else we can do for you?
-4
-2
u/MayoMcCheese 1d ago
why don't we feel bad for other invasive species?
2
u/PM_ME_UR_ROUND_ASS 1d ago
We actually do for some, but invasive species that disrupt ecosystems or threaten endangered native species (like in hawaii which has the highest extinction rate) tend to get less sympathy than lost individuals like this owl that pose minimal ecological risk.
-1
u/Open-Egg1732 1d ago
Vacationer shot and killed by police because they didn't have permission to visit
Fixed the headline for you.
-4
-5
-2
39
u/Oakvilleresident 1d ago
Food gets scarce in the arctic in the winter and the younger owls head south for food . I’ve seen a couple in Southern Ontario over the years and they are like seeing a celebrity or something. They are breathtaking