Mooresville fire crew rescues bald eagle at flooded creek
MOORESVILLE, Ind. (WISH) — The town’s Fire Department on Tuesday rescued a juvenile bald eagle that may have gotten caught up in the waters of White Lick Creek.
Billie Golden, who lives on Wilson Drive a few blocks south of Neil Armstrong Elementary school, found the eagle about 4 p.m. in her back yard, adjacent to the east fork of the creek. Golden contacted a friend, Lynn Avant, who also lives in Mooresville. Avant frequently helps out with local animal rescues.
Avant and Golden were not sure what to do to help the bird. It appeared to be disoriented if not hurt, and may have been caught earlier in the creek’s floodwaters.
So Avant drove to the Mooresville Fire Department. There, she found Lt. Jon Fletcher, who is certified in large-animal rescue.
Fletcher and a rescue crew arrived about 6:45 p.m. They corralled the bird and, on Tuesday night, it was in a darkened room at the fire station before an Indiana Department of Natural Resources representative arrived. She took the bird to a raptor rescue center near Nashville, Indiana, Fletcher said.
This avian rescue wasn’t Fletcher’s first. He once helped a turkey vulture hit by a car, and the Brown County center rehabilitated that bird, he said.
But the best kind of bird rescue happened four years ago. He said as the crew approached a great horned owl that had been hit by a vehicle, it flew off.