At the Northern Rockies Raptor Center in
northwestern Montana, Ken Wolff has been nursing injured birds back
to health for 12 years. But this August his nonprofit operation hit
a small snag. Five hundred pounds of frozen rodents, which Wolff
uses to feed birds of prey, failed to arrive at the Missoula
airport. He spent most of a day on the phone trying to track his
rats, which showed up two days later.
“Rats and I
arrive at the airport about the same time,” Wolff writes in the
center’s journal, Raptor Room News: A Non-Scientific
Journal of Goings-On. “One box is ripped open and dead
rats litter the freight room at Delta. At 0315 I am home, stuffing
over 1000 rats into freezers. Truly a sick world
…”
Wolff, a former Marine and hunting guide,
started to help birds in 1983, after he found a bullet-riddled but
still-living great horned owl. He trained himself by reading books
and literature from recovery centers in the East and Midwest and
now he, his wife, Jody, and a network of veterinarians and
volunteers treat 500 birds a year. Most of the center’s patients
come from upper Montana, and many are young bald and golden eagles
hit by vehicles while feasting on
roadkill.
Visitors aren’t allowed at the center,
but Wolff keeps his nationwide supporters up to date with the
thrice-yearly News. The journal also covers bits of Wolff’s Montana
life, including visits from black bears and displays of the
northern lights.
You can get your talons on the
News for a $20 donation to Wolff’s Grounded Eagle Foundation, 278
Kraft Creek Road, Condon, MT 59826-8801
(406/754-2880).
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Of raptors, rats and roadkill.
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