Crime & Safety

Halesite Firemen Save Tangled Osprey

Fire Department personnel assist animal control in freeing Osprey caught on antenna wires.

Two Halesite Fire Department members helped rescue an Osprey caught on an antenna in Huntington Bay Wednesday.

Firemen Mike Conforti and Alex Niedziela responded to a call at around 5 p.m. that the bird's foot had become ensnared in cable wires after it perched on an antenna on a house along Shore Road. Two other Osprey were circling the bird, ready to thwart any perceived threat to their companion.

It took about 15 minutes for the firemen and a volunteer from Volunteers for Wildlife, a non-profit wildlife hospital and education center based in Locust Valley, to free the bird.

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"They raised an aerial ladder, lowered the antenna, and then she [the wildlife volunteer] had to grab the bird and my guys had to cut the bird free from the cable it was caught in. They put it in a pillowcase and carried it down so it didn't hurt itself or anyone else," Halesite Fire Department Chief Andy Magerle said Thursday.

The Osprey, considered an animal of "special concern" by New York State, was taken to a wildlife rehabilitation center for injuries suffered to its leg.

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Editor's Note: The story was changed to reflect the correct agency that assisted the fire department in freeing the bird. The agency was the Volunteers for Wildlife, not the Town of Huntington Animal Control Department.


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