Sebastian is safe at the Wildlife Rehab Center but will not return to the wild anytime soon.
Courtesy | John Ahrabi

When sophomore John Ahrabi trekked across campus to meet up with his cross country teammates in late November, he didn’t expect it would lead to an owl rescue mission.

“I was taking a walk, going to team Bible study,” Ahrabi said. “I was already 10 minutes late. I saw a woman looking at something.”

He doubled back to investigate.

“There was a little owl just sitting there,” Ahrabi said. 

It was a screech owl, four or five inches tall, speckled brown, with needle-sharp talons, and in bad shape. 

“It seemed to have something wrong with its foot,” Ahrabi said. “It didn’t want to open its eyes, and it had an injured wing.”

Ahrabi felt he couldn’t leave the bird to die.

“I’ve kept chickens for a long time, so birds are important to me,” he said. “I was going to try to move it off the sidewalk, into some bushes, but it didn’t seem to like that. So I left and it flew across the street.”

After Ahrabi’s Bible study, the bird was still there. Clearly, Ahrabi thought, the owl could not survive by itself.

“My cousin-in-law is a veterinarian,” Ahrabi said. “So I texted him, and he told me to contact a raptor center.”

Wildside Rehabilitation and Education Center, located an hour away in Eaton Rapids, Michigan, came up on Ahrabi’s phone, the only facility anywhere close to Hillsdale. 

“I called them,” Ahrabi said. “They said, ‘Try to contain it and keep it warm and dark until tomorrow, and we’ll figure out a way to get it back to us.’”

 

Ahrabi hustled back to his dorm, the Suites Residence, where he met some friends.

“We’d all driven back and John had been gone for a while,” freshman John Richardson said. “He shows up and he’s like: ‘I found an owl!’” 

They jumped into action.

“We brought a cardboard box and a blanket, grabbed the owl, put it in the box on top of the blanket, wrapped a shirt around it and carried it back to the Suites like that,” Ahrabi said.

Once in the Suites, Ahrabi cared for the owl, whom he named Sebastian.

“Don’t feed it. That’s what they told me,” Ahrabi said. “They said if you give him too much water he could fall into it and drown, especially if he’s injured. You have to put the water from an eye dropper into the corners of its beak and then some of it will go into its mouth.”

For the time, Sebastian was safe, but Ahrabi knew he had to find a way to get Sebastian to the rehabilitation center.

“He was prepared to drive somewhere to save the owl,” Richardson said.

Initially, no one from the shelter wanted to take the owl from Hillsdale. After an anxious few hours, a volunteer stepped up.

“She just came down to the Suites, I brought him out, and she took him,” Ahrabi said. 

According to the clinic, Sebastian had head trauma — likely the cause of other symptoms — and right eye trauma.

Sebastian has been recovering after undergoing an eye removal surgery Jan. 24. Once he heals, he will still be able to hunt, despite his missing eye. 

However, according to Wildside Director Louise Sagaert, Sebastian will not be returned to the wild in the foreseeable future.

“Because it’s a young bird from this past summer, it will not be released,” Sagaert said. “It will be placed into an educational situation.”

Many rehabilitated birds like Sebastian who may struggle to survive in the wild are incorporated into educational programs at schools and zoos. 

“This owl will be part of one of those programs as long as it stays in good health and takes well to it,” the representative said.

Sebastian may now become the star of the show. He would have been roadkill were it not for Ahrabi’s second glance.