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Gull Flying High Again After Rescue
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Published: January 17, 2009
NEW PORT RICHEY - Spirits were soaring high among people who helped rescue a sea gull that had appeared doomed.
The man of the hour is Harold Rule, a Bright House Networks cable TV system technician. Rule plucked the bird from the top of the light pole on which it had gotten stuck late last week.
Rule maneuvered the company's bucket truck into position next to the light fixture in the parking lot of Trouble Creek Square, a shopping center at Trouble Creek Road and Grand Boulevard.
Many office workers came out to cheer Rule as he freed the gull in distress.
The gull had been stuck for several days, flapping its wings in a vain attempt to get free, according to Annemarie G. Hammond, Pasco County's environmental lands program coordinator.
She and two colleagues at the Pasco Environmental Lands Acquisition and Management Program, Ron Daniel and Don Robinson, had called many places in an attempt to find help for the bird.
At one point the land managers were concerned the gull had given up and died. Their feathered friend, however, was still clinging to life they discovered after Rule brought the bird down to the ground.
Hammond and others gave the bird water, which the gull eagerly drank. The gull was placed into a box.
Daniel at first thought the bird might have suffered a broken wing. He knew Linda Christian, the president of the 100 Acre Wood Wildlife Rehabilitation, in Brooksville. Christian advised the rescuers to take the gull first to Animal Emergency of Hernando, in Spring Hill, for overnight care. Animal Medical Center of Brooksville then took over.
The gull did have a concussion but has made a full recovery, its rescuers report.
Christian wound up with the gull and scouted a new home for him. The bird was set free with a tern, a member of a related seabird family, at Hernando County's Pine Island Park, near Weeki Wachee.
The gull is flying high once again, its rescuers were delighted to find out Wednesday.
The nickname for their feathered friend?
Lucky, of course, Hammond said.
Carl Orth can be reached at 727-815-1068 or corth@suncoastnews.com.
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