‘This is the kind of thing I love to do’: Baby great horned owl finds surrogate family in Pullman

When animals are injured, orphaned or otherwise left to Mother Nature’s unforgiving devices, must humans just sit back and observe?

Sometimes, staying away is for the best. Local wildlife can be more resilient than it appears.

Other times, Pacific Northwest residents can make a call to Washington State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital for help. From baby chipmunks to mama moose, treatment is available for all.

Such was the case for a pair of great horned owl siblings found hopping around on the ground near a Liberty Lake school in March. The last sibling was rehomed in Pullman on Wednesday after more than three months in raptor rehab.

The now 4-month-old owl, called “2026-0104” by hospital staff, took to the blue-gray skies of the Palouse without a moment’s hesitation at the opening of his carrier. He circled above the few trees at Roundtop Park before perching near three members of an established four-owl family. They didn’t interact immediately, but WSU’s care team isn’t overly concerned for little 0104’s integration, as great horns are known to be particularly accepting parents.

Though in a rehabilitation facility, there wasn’t anything wrong with the Liberty Lake siblings, “except that maybe their parents chose a not-great nesting spot,” clinical faculty member at the hospital Marcie Logsdon said. Logsdon has been involved with wildlife medical and rehabilitation care since her time as a veterinary student in 2012.

“As soon as I had an opportunity to come back here, I was right on it,” she said. “Because this is the kind of thing I love to do.”

Great horned owls don’t make their own nests, instead moving into abandoned corvid nests or similar structures. Logsdon once saw an owl family using a pile of pine needles caught on a branch as a nest.

As far as family homes go, this strategy leaves much to be desired. Hospital calls for great horned owls pick up in March each year as curious babies begin to fall out of their nests.

If the fallen baby is too young to get back into the nest on its own, the best scenario is that professionals can help get the baby back into its nest.

But in the case of the Liberty Lake duo, the roughly 2-month-old owls were simply beginning to fledge when they were taken in by humans.

“There’s about a week where they’re kind of awkward and you can find them lower than you would typically expect to find an owl,” Logsdon said. “They also have a habit of when somebody walks up to them, instead of turning and flying away, they just turn around and try to act all big and scary.”

When unable to return to their own family, juvenile birds can find a temporary home in the wooden mews of WSU’s Stauber Raptor Facility in Pullman. If so young that the bird was unable to imprint on their parents, feeders use ghillie suits and puppets to prevent imprinting on humans.

Some raptor species, such as the red-tailed hawk, do great in a rehab setting, Logsdon said. They pass their hunting and health tests and successfully survive in the wild after release. In the case of great horned owls though, results are typically more grim.

“So they’re a really high priority for us to get back out with the wild family so they can learn those missing pieces,” she said. Every great horned owl brought in over the past five or six years has made it into a new family.

One owl sibling was adopted into a great horn surrogate family in Colton, Washington, in April. Erin Patterson-Semier, who works in the WSU hospital’s small animal internal medicine department, owns the land the owls live on.

“The parents have made a home in our barn for several years and have had anywhere from 1-3 babies of their own,” she wrote in a text message, adding that this year, there have been two natural babies. “The existing family happily accepted the new baby as soon as I opened the box, pretty much!”

Indeed, a video of the release shows an owl parent immediately flying out to greet the young owl – still downy with baby feathers – who had flown away from the barn nest initially. In subsequent photos, all three babies can be seen standing together.

Patterson-Semier said she doesn’t have much experience with the raptor rehabilitation group, other than “asking Dr. Logsdon a lot of questions about the owls that live on our property.”

Her family calls the new addition “BB,” for “Bonus Baby.” The other two are the “OG” babies.

While she would be happy to facilitate another foster owl next year, there wasn’t enough room for BB’s sibling in the barn this year.

“We try to be very careful to make sure that we’re not overloading the natural parents because the natural parents with their brood, they’re not doing anything wrong,” Logsdon said. “And so we pay very close attention to how many babies they have, how many we think that that area can support, and what we call natural clutch size.”

The natural clutch size for great horned owls is around two to four owlets in a season, and those babies tend to stay with their parents throughout September and October after hatching early in the year. The natural and adoptive owls need to be roughly the same age to prevent eating one another.

On June 15, Logsdon marched from the hospital to the college’s raptor rehabilitation center with a remarkably calm, upside-down owl and a cup of coffee in one hand, and an empty cardboard box for birds in the other. Veterinary student Megan Conrey trailed behind her, an occupied bird box in tow. They dropped the birds off and readied to check 2026-0104’s fitness for placement with a new surrogate family in Pullman.

They walked through multiple bleach baths to kill any potential bird-pathogens stuck to their shoes. Logsdon readied an identifying ankle tag while Conrey netted the owl. During a quick physical, Logsdon noticed one eye was a touch cloudy and wrinkly.

“The concern with the eyes is mostly the ability to hunt, right?” she said. “We’re gonna take this kid up to the hospital first.”

Unhappy with being handled, the owl switched between making a childish ‘chittering’ noise and an intimidating ‘clacking’ noise, unable to decide which defensive strategy to use. In the exam room, Logsdon confirmed a cornea scratch using fluorescent eye drops.

“I don’t know what he managed to do here – I’m worried he managed to hit it on something,” she said. “So it means that we are not gonna get to release this friend today.”

The day’s luck may have been used on other patients earlier in the day, Logsdon joked. After all, there were around 20 birds in the hospital’s care at the time, on top of the many daily emergency calls. So far in 2026, the hospital has treated over 570 animals.

Following two weeks of eye-drop treatments and healing, owl 2026-0104 was released by Conrey with his eye as good as new.

As much as Logsdon loves the owl and despite the hours of care that went into his wellbeing, she said he will not make a significant difference in Pullman’s local great horned population.

“I think sometimes when you get people looking at this from a population level or an overall wildlife level, they have a hard time seeing the benefit to wildlife rehab because we are dealing with one animal at a time,” Logsdon said.

While the rare critter does make its way through the clinic every so often, far more common are concerned calls for the every-day animals like barn owls and rabbits.

Saving a baby owl makes more of a difference in the life of the person who found it and wanted to help. While maybe a common thing to run across in the hospital, Logsdon reminds staff and volunteers that every call could well be a person’s first experience with a wild animal in need. If the public isn’t supposed to care for wildlife on their own, Logsdon said the clinic serves as the better alternative.

“Our world’s in a little bit of (a) rough state. I’m sure that people have been saying that for generations, but it feels like things are really rough right now. And so when somebody is showing empathy for a living thing that’s not themselves, I want to reward that and say, like, ‘Thank you for caring. It is good that you care. Even if the outcome ends up being sad, even if that rabbit doesn’t need your help, thank you for caring. Thank you for reaching out about this little animal.’ ”

If someone comes across an animal that they believe may need help, Logsdon said they should call the veterinary hospital at its 24/7 hotline, 509-595-7006 , and talk with a staffer or volunteer.

“Many of these animals, we can help them just by not bringing them in,” she said. “But then on the flip side, if it’s one that truly is injured or orphaned, that’s what we’re here for. That’s what we want to be doing.”