Story by Rebecca West
Photos courtesy of Tucson Wildlife Center
As a desert dweller, the last thing you want to see is a great horned owl embedded in the grill of your car or truck. If you’re a motorcyclist who comes into contact with one of them on a long stretch of lonely road, you could end up laying your bike down and find yourself in the hospital with blunt-force trauma. With their nearly five-foot wing spans, massive talons, and incredibly sharp hooked beaks, they are a force to be reckoned with. But what about the damage or death to the birds themselves?
Unfortunately, the Tucson Wildlife Center (TWC) knows all too well the consequences for these impressive creatures, with its rescue team responding to no less than three separate great horned owl rescues in quick succession this past fall. In each case, the owls were discovered injured near a roadway after presumably colliding with moving vehicles. All adults, the birds suffered a combination of head and eye trauma, plus varying degrees of fractures from the impacts.
At the time of the events, TWC noted, “Thanks to fast action by our rescue team and our veterinary staff, all three owls are receiving medical treatment and are responding well to rehabilitation. We are hopeful each will make a full recovery and return to the wild.” We spoke with Hubert Parker, Development Director at TWC, in December to find out if or when the birds were able to be released. He confirmed that they had, in fact, returned them to the wild a few weeks earlier after their treatment and healing were complete.
As to treatment, we asked how one goes about dealing with fractures and broken bones in a bird. Owls, like most birds, have hollow bones, or more precisely, pneumatized bones, which are lightweight but reinforced with internal struts for strength. Parker explained that the fractures were carefully wrapped while they healed, and no splinting was required. One of the owls with ocular injuries will sadly suffer from a degree of permanent vision impairment, but not enough to keep it from successfully hunting or flying.
Native to the Americas, these powerful apex predators are highly adaptable hunters scouring forests, deserts, swamps, and coastlines for a diverse diet that includes skunks, opossums, snakes, squirrels, voles, frogs, lizards, insects, scorpions, and occasionally fish. They’ll even eat other predatory birds, such as crows and, believe it or not, raptors like falcons and ospreys, which are apex predators themselves. Aggressive in their pursuit of food, they are sometimes called tiger owls.
During the fall, as nighttime encroaches earlier and earlier, and throughout the dark winter months, the Tucson Wildlife Center reminds the community to use extra caution when driving after dark, particularly through rural stretches with open desert and utility poles. They also recommend you reduce your speed, use high beams when safe to do so, and remain alert for wildlife along the roadside. As TWC points out, “a few extra seconds of awareness can save a life—maybe even that of one of these magnificent owls.”
They further explained that, “Great horned owls fly and hunt low to the ground, especially at night, scanning roadsides for prey such as mice, rats, and rabbits that are attracted to the warmth of pavement and roadside vegetation. When headlights suddenly illuminate an owl’s eyes, their vision takes longer to adjust compared to daytime birds. That reaction time—combined with the silent glide of their wings—makes them tragically vulnerable to vehicle strikes.”
Displaying both crepuscular and nocturnal activity, great horned owls are most active at dawn and dusk, but they are also considered nocturnal, meaning they hunt throughout the night, so be aware when lighting conditions are low. The point is that while you can have unexpected contact with them throughout the year, you have a greater chance during autumn and winter months due to longer periods of darkness versus spring and summer when it remains light longer.
While their numbers were up in the late ‘80s and throughout the 1990s, they started to fall around 2000, leveled off from there for a while, and then began to drop again in 2023.
If you would like to volunteer or help patients at the Tucson Wildlife Center, like these great horned owls, go to their website to sign up or donate. You can also sponsor resident animals. Another way you can contribute is to visit their wish lists on Amazon or Chewy by scanning this code, which will also take you to other options connected to TWC.
Additionally, their annual fundraiser will be held on March 8, 2026, at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort, with the proceeds amounting to roughly a third of the Center’s overall yearly budget. Tickets are available online at tucsonwildlife.com/2026-annual-benefit/ with early-bird pricing before February 1, while they last.
