City officials have a stern warning for anyone thinking about putting up their own disc golf equipment in Robert Burnaby Park: Just don’t.
This comes after a bald eagle nearly lost its life when it got caught up in wire hanging from a tree in the park.
The wire was attached to a disc golf basket.
Fortunately for the bird, a Good Samaritan came across the eagle last Friday (Nov. 13) and called the Orphaned Wildlife (OWL) Rehabilitation Society to have it rescued.
OWL’s Martina Versteeg explained a mom and her children spotted the eagle in the park and approached it thinking it was dead. However, the eagle blinked and was alive.
“Luckily the bird didn’t have any broken bones, just sore muscles, and he recovered quite rapidly,” she told the NOW.
“That’s why we’re glad to get him out as soon as we can.”
Vertseeg said the bird would have likely died of shock had it not been found by the family.
The bird was expected to be released back into the wild Thursday.
While Versteeg called the bird’s predicament a “fluke,” the city is taking a closer look at the incident.
Parks director Dave Ellenwood said the city was unaware of the wire until the incident, adding the contraption was not authorized by the city and would never have been even if a group made a request.
“It was obviously a stupid idea to do that in the first place, very unfortunate,” he said, noting the wire was taken down as soon as the city found out.
Ellenwood pointed out the park is already home to a disc golf course that is regularly used. The posts are not suspended from the trees.
“It baffles me why someone would need to suspend something else from a tree to engage in that activity,” he said, noting it’s the first incident of its kind since his time as director.
So far, no one has come forward to claim responsibility for putting up the wire.
Ellenwood said the city isn’t going to start an investigation, but he is reminding park users not to hang wire from the trees.
