Two cops from the New York Police Department (NYPD) saved an injured wild hawk struck in the traffic at a busy intersection in Brooklyn on Jan. 23.
The injured hawk, dubbed the #Williambird, narrowly missed speeding cars before NYPD cops put it into a cage and took it to a local wildlife rehabilitation centre.
“It seemed like it was sick,” Paez told New York Post. “It was just kind of scary that it was in the middle of the street and cars were going by ... I was afraid it was going to run over by a car.”
Not an Easy Rescue
A NYPD cop using gloves and a towel then approached the hawk, but it flew away onto a window across the street. The bird stayed on the window for sometime and again escaped when the police arrived, landing back in the intersection.Officers and curious onlookers then saved the bird from speeding traffic, including a bus, and finally managed to push him into the cage.
The bird was found to be suffering from moderate lead poisoning and was covered with grease, according to a tweet by NYPD 90th Precint, which saved the bird.
New York’s hawks have had their own share of fame. A hawk named Pale Male that made New York its home since 1990 became so famous that he was featured in films and in children’s books.
Other Bird Rescues in New York City
This is not the first time that NYPD has rescued a hawk from a busy city street or intersection. Last year just before Christmas, NYPD rescued an uninjured hawk from the very-busy Penn station on Dec. 24.In this case, MTA officials had called police. Detective Joseph Bucchignano was the officer who showed up on Christmas Eve to help the trapped bird. He pulled it out of the booth, put it into a cage, and released it over the Hudson River on the West Side Highway.