You know the moment. Something at the side of the road catches your eye, your foot stays on the gas, and a mile later you are still wondering what it was.
Sharon Jacobs does not leave it at wondering.
On Thursday, October 1, Sharon and her husband, Scott, were driving near Spearfish, South Dakota. The couple owns an art gallery and a brewery in Deadwood, and they were on their way to the gallery for an employee meeting. Kate Meadows of Cowboy State Daily reported what happened next.
Scott spotted something on a fence and kept driving.
“I think that was a hawk stuck on the barbed wire,” he told her. He did not think it was alive.
Sharon has rescued horses, cats and dogs. She asked him to back up.
What Was Caught in the Fence?
Sharon had chosen silver heels that day. She ran down a dirt road in them anyway. She was only feet away when she saw what was hanging from the wire: a great horned owl.
“It’s an owl!” she yelled back to her husband.
The owl was staring right at her. It began clicking its beak, which is how horned owls signal a threat or show distress. Sharon owns horses, and she spoke to the bird the way she would calm a frightened one.
“It’s OK, buddy,” she told it. “I’m here to help you. We’re here to help you.”
Who Stops for an Owl?
The Jacobses had a grocery bag in their vehicle, and Sharon knew that covering a bird’s head can help keep it calm. They had no gloves. Then a driver named Brandon, a shift manager at Lucky’s, stopped to see what was going on. He had gloves.
Scott and Brandon slipped the bag over the owl’s head, but the bird was badly tangled. Sharon said it barely fought them.
“It’s almost as if he sensed we were there to help,” she said.
Another vehicle pulled up. This time it was the property owner. Sharon explained that the fence would have to be cut. The young woman called her father, and his answer was simple: cut it.
Brandon, it turned out, had wire cutters in his vehicle.
“What are the chances?” Sharon said.
Scott pulled on the gloves and worked one of the owl’s feet free. The owl set its other foot on his gloved hand. Brandon took off his sweatshirt to cover the bird, and Scott gathered it up.
Will the Owl Fly Again?
Sharon’s veterinarian met them at his office. A few minutes after he took the bird in, he came back holding about a foot of barbed wire. Nothing on the owl appeared to be broken.
Sharon started making calls, and the owl ended up with the Black Hills Raptor Center, which describes itself as an all-volunteer group. Barbara Alexander, a transporter with the center, spoke to Cowboy State Daily the next day. She said the owl had avoided a tear in its patagium. That is the flexible membrane along the leading edge of a wing, and a bird needs it to fly.
The owl is not home yet. Alexander said it was on pain medication and antibiotics. She said the center’s director was guardedly optimistic it would heal. If all goes well, it will be released in the territory it knows.
“Everybody’s goal was to get this beautiful creature taken care of,” Sharon said.
She plans to be there on release day. “I have every intention of being there,” she said. “And I know I’ll cry.”
A couple on their way to a meeting. A stranger with gloves and wire cutters. A father on the other end of a phone call.
The next time something at the side of the road makes you look twice, you know what Sharon Jacobs would say. Back up.
