M2 attacked by hawk at LA zoo bird show - (shocking but not graphic)

[mrstweet]

I have to share this - I am positively moved to tears by the braveness of this zoo host. She uses her body to SHIELD Scooter from an attack by a hawk at the LA Zoo. I am amazed by her alertness to the bird's body language and her ability to react. She hugs the cockatoo and saves his life, taking the brunt of the attack to her head and neck. It looks like the hawk was trying to go through her to get to the M2.

I am not sure if she was harmed; this video is 2 years old.

It's a little less hard to believe this could happen to you walking down the street with your parrot, harness or not.

 

[TextsFromParrots]

Yeah I saw that once. Amazing that she'd put herself at risk like that. Mostly because that was her first instinct. It wasn't to run or throw scooter of and dive but to hug him in and curl her body around him. It says alot about her relationship with him.

 

[Renae]

How terrifying!

It is lucky she seen that the hawk was coming down on him (as well as hearing the loud screeches), and quickly reacted by using her body as a shield, had she not, he would have been gone. She obviously has a very close bond with him and loves him a lot. I am surprised though that the M2 wasn't biting out of fear, he must have been just as scared since he was the target. I do also wonder how he escaped, was the door not closed properly? Surely he couldn't escape out of something like that, not as if he can push the door and out he goes.

 

[Leza]

I do know someone who was attacked by a hawk in a rural area here. He had his macaw on his shoulder when it struck at him, and pummelled his chest. The bruise on him was amazing-- about a foot and a half long. Very lucky for a screeching MAC, and a thick leather jacket that he wasn't more seriously injured-- for her if scooter had not warned her of it swooping in he would not have survived.

 

[kcbee]

oh my goodness! What a brave lady.

The other day I was thinking about how I would like to get a flight harness for my future larger parrot and was wondering about the danger of hawks. I had a hawk dive bomb and crash into my sunroom windows trying to get my parakeet - so this is a real fear of mine.

 

[mjones]

This is scary! We live in the country and on Sunday I went to throw some scraps to our chickens and they were all hiding in a bush. There are lots of hawks around here but we only let them out for short periods and that day it'd been raining all day so I wasn't too worried. Right as I saw them in the bush, a hawk swooped down towards them so close to me that I felt the wind from his wings on my face! I got a close up view I wouldn't normally get or want to get. It was a young hawk but a much larger, maybe the parent, hawk flew overhead. I rushed and got all my chickens back in the coop! Way too close a call for me!

 

[jasminlana]

OMG, so scary. I'm surprised that nobody came to her rescue. she couldnt' really fight off the hawk because she was holding and shielding the M2.

we don't have a lot of hawks around here, but once at the park, I had a small liter of puppies and my dog started barking like crazy, a hawk was circling. I had to quickly get all the pups back in the carry bag and we got out of there

 

[Chantilly Lace]

I remember seeing that and then having nightmares about my Paco. I would have done the same thing for sure, even if it were a tiger or bear coming after my baby!

 

[Anne & Gang]

I remember seeing that..what a brave, brave woman to do that...that also proves how incredibly aware you must always be when you have your birds with you outside....I know of an incident where a person had their tiel in a cage outside and a hawk came and took the tiel out THROUGH THE BARS..you do not want to know what that looked like or sounded like.

 

[April]

OMG,what an amazing video. Thank god she though quickly and was able to save him.

 

[Bokkapooh]

I remember this. Its very sad to think about what could have happened to Scooter the M2...you can hear him scream

 

[Cupcake]

She is a hero...............you can totally see the love she has for Scooter by the way she protects him and takes the full hawk attack.

But I agree, where the flip are the rest of the people involved with the show????? Poor thing..........

 

[Vega]

Its amazing how one doesn't think of themselves and instead automatically goes to protect something/one they love. I can't image the fear that must've gone through her once that hawk clamped on, yet you can see she's still working to cover the M2.

That being said...Even with the quickest instinct it would take others involved in the show at least 5-10 seconds to realize what was going and react to it. It would've been nice to see the entire clip and not just a few seconds. But please remember this is just a few seconds of what happened, and not the entire story.

 

[mrstweet]

She is a hero...............you can totally see the love she has for Scooter by the way she protects him and takes the full hawk attack.

But I agree, where the flip are the rest of the people involved with the show????? Poor thing..........

The clip ends while she is still being attacked - what is it, 10 seconds? It takes people a minute to react to things sometimes. Thank goodness she noticed his crest going up and the side to side motion of his head wasn't a "happy excited" but an "I'm scared." I want to look around to see where she wound up injury wise--I imagine she got bit by both M2 and hawk.

Its amazing how one doesn't think of themselves and instead automatically goes to protect something/one they love. I can't image the fear that must've gone through her once that hawk clamped on, yet you can see she's still working to cover the M2.

That being said...Even with the quickest instinct it would take others involved in the show at least 5-10 seconds to realize what was going and react to it. It would've been nice to see the entire clip and not just a few seconds. But please remember this is just a few seconds of what happened, and not the entire story.

 

[Vega]

I found another clip of this video. At 11 seconds you can see someone running to the woman's aide.(as the screen goes dark) From what I can tell the man appears right when the first video shuts off the attack. Watch closely, you can see when her hand reaches back to grab the hawk on both videos, that's how I estimated the time.

YouTube - Hawk Attacks Woman + Parrot


I wanted to be detective in another life LOL in the first video at 40 seconds, right before it cuts to the man doing the interview, on the right hand side you can see an arm/foot of the person coming out to help the keeper. Its literally a split second before the cut to the interview. Watch closely...

 

[mrstweet]

Vega, thanks for finding that!

 

[Chicklette]

Wow, she saved that birds life. That would be really scary.

 

[crzybrdldy]

I remember seeing that segment on Animal Planet.

Somehow the box that Flash was in for the show had a malfunctioning latch, they thought that he may have been bumping the door;which after awhile popped open. The crowd was the first to notice that Flash was out and circleing for the dive. The amazing part is that Scooter looked up and then the handler realized in that split second that something was wrong.

After all the commentary from audience members they talked to the handler about the experience, she feels like the fact that she protected changed their relationship for the better.

I was happy to see that she thought of Scooter over herself. )

 

[Joey]

that swoop was magnificent though!

 

[SaraR]

So i found the full 3 min vid on animal planet but i can't view it for some reason....if someone could maybe post it? on that show it usually tells you how the "victims" are doing now...