Rehabilitated owl released at Alley Pond

From the Queens Courier:

The Alley Pond Environmental Center has an extra pair of wings in its skies, thanks to the caring work provided by one Queens- and Nassau- based veterinary center.

An adult female screech owl was found by police officers on Friday, January 22, lying on the street on Union Turnpike. They immediately brought her in to the Central Veterinary Associates’ (CVA) 24-hour hospital in Valley Stream. She was thought to have been hit by a car on the turnpike.

Dr. John Charos, who works for the CVA, which has an office on Bell Boulevard in Bayside as well as others throughout the borough, admitted the bird for care and monitored her rehabilitation. Dr. Karina Salvo looked after the daily treatment of the bird, as well as the CVA’s various other veterinarians.

“The owl was brought in a state of shock with head trauma,” said Charos. “Its right eye was closed and there was swelling to the right side of its head.”

Charos immediately treated the owl for shock. He and Salvo then kept the bird on injectable antibiotics to help heal her wounds, and had her tube fed three to four times a day until her soft tissue trauma had healed and she was able to eat on her own.

During her stay, they also gave her a name - Athena.

Fully healed and after a long goodbye, Athena was released in the Alley Pond Environmental Center, near where she was found, on the morning of Tuesday, February 9. Charos is an active board member with the environmental center, which he called “a little known gem of our city parks system,” and arranged for the release, which took place in front of five classes of kindergarten students.