Michael Flores was driving home from work along the Silvertip Trail in Canmore on Tuesday evening when he spotted an injured owl on the road. “It was crawling and couldn’t fly. I was worried that another vehicle might hit it. So, I stopped to help,” he said. Flores said he knew very little about handling injured wildlife but decided to pick up the bird rather than leave it behind. “I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it there,” he said. Not knowing what to do next, he called his wife, Iryna Leshchuk, for help. The couple said the owl had a visible injury around its eye and appeared to need urgent care. Leshchuk, who is pregnant, was also concerned about the risks of bringing an injured wild bird into their home. “I was so scared because we didn’t know what to do,” she said. “We didn’t want the bird to be hurt.” She began calling wildlife and emergency contacts, but finding immediate help proved difficult. Banff dispatch directed her elsewhere because the owl had been found in Canmore, while calls to local dispatch went unanswered. With time running out, Leshchuk turned to a Canmore community Facebook group for help. Residents sent her links to wildlife rehabilitation centres and offered advice. Among them was Rimma Goodfellow, who volunteered to help get the owl to safety. She contacted a facility in Cochrane, which agreed to take the bird overnight before it could be transferred to a rehabilitation centre. Goodfellow arranged to collect the owl from Flores and drove it to the facility. “It was very stressful for us because we were so worried about what was going to happen,” Leshchuk said. Goodfellow kept the couple updated as the owl received care. The initial assessment found the bird was dehydrated, appeared not to have eaten for several days and had a fracture and bleeding around its right eye. The owl received treatment and medication but despite the efforts to help it, the owl later died. For the couple, the rescue is still a reminder of the kindness people can show one another, even when they are strangers. “We live in their area, basically,” Leshchuk said of local wildlife. “It’s beautiful when people are doing this. This is a big matter of kindness for me and for our family.” The experience has taken on an even deeper meaning for Flores, who recently learned that his son has a serious lung condition and may need a double-lung transplant. As the family prepares for a difficult road ahead, Flores hopes the same kindness that helped save the owl might find its way to his son, too. The family is planning to travel to Toronto as they navigate the transplant process and has set up a fundraiser to help with the associated costs.
