WEST HAVEN, Weber County — A great horned owl found alive Sunday morning after being hit by a semitrailer the night before on I-15 and getting trapped in the truck's grill has since been euthanized.
Police and wildlife officials described the owl's initial survival as miraculous, but it was euthanized Sunday night because of respiratory injuries, according to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
The semitrailer was traveling Saturday night from Idaho to Utah when the driver noticed he hit the owl but had no idea its wing had become stuck in the truck's grill, according to the Weber County Sheriff's Office. It wasn't clear exactly where the truck was on I-15 when it hit the owl.
The semitrailer's driver "just thought the owl was gone" after hitting it, said Phil Douglass, a Division of Wildlife Resources wildlife conservation outreach manager for northern Utah.
The driver stopped for breakfast at a Flying J gas station in West Haven late Sunday morning before noticing the bird, still alive and trapped on the front of the truck. He called police, who contacted a state wildlife technician to remove and treat the owl.
The bird's wing was injured, but it appeared initially that it might survive the ordeal. Later in the day, however, workers at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah in Ogden detected serious breathing problems and decided "the only course of action was to euthanize it," Douglass said.
"(It was) an unfortunate end to a pretty amazing story of the resilience of wildlife that it even survived to that point," he said. "The silver lining to this is that people really care. … (The driver) contacted the Division of Wildlife (Resources) immediately, and we appreciate that."
Douglass said it's common for animals' injuries to appear less serious initially after being hit by a vehicle, only to succumb later to internal trauma. Owls don't pay attention to freeway traffic near their habitats while hunting for prey, he said, making them vulnerable.
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