The Raptor Rehabilitator

Our region’s hawks, eagles, and owls have a friend in Roger Smith.

By Cory Hatch

Roger Smith has been rehabilitating and caring for injured raptors, such as great horned owls, since 1991.

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Down the hallway of a tidy outbuilding at the Hardeman Ranch near Wilson, Roger Smith pokes his head into a small room with a gravel floor littered with feathers and bird droppings. Big metal bars line the window and a wood scaffolding leans against the wall.

“Chirp chirp chirp,” Smith calls out, in his best eagle-talk. A golden eagle on a carpeted perch looks back over its shoulder and mimics the call. The size of the bird—it’s a little larger than the coyotes it preys on in the wild—is intimidating, but it appears docile, almost pet-like, as it begs for food from Smith.

“You can see this one wing is a little beat up,” Smith says, explaining that the eagle, found by a rancher near Douglas, Wyoming, likely sustained an accidental injury from one of its parents as a hatchling. “This bird never flew.”

The eagle steps closer and looks at Smith’s hands with a sideways glance that appears quizzical. “I didn’t bring any,” Smith says, addressing the eagle in the same way one might talk to a puppy or a small child, when explaining the absence of a treat. “It’s thawing out.” Then to me: “We have to show our hands when we leave.”