El Rio Vivo Event at Liberty Wildlife This Saturday 3/2
Join us at Liberty Wildlife on Saturday 3/2 for our first El Rio Vivo event. Start at 8:30 to walk the Rio Salado trail. Then join us from 10am-4pm to listen to local musicians while you browse community art vendors and meet Animal Ambassadors up close. For more information visit www.libertywildlife.org
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 - If you can't tell, we have moved out here
00:02 to be with our beautiful friend.
00:04 - Yes.
00:05 - Brad, are you just like, I'm just gonna stay back.
00:08 - I'm back here for a little bit.
00:09 Well, as soon as, squeaky, as soon as we walked out,
00:11 that's like, so.
00:12 - She's saying hi.
00:13 - She's saying hi, yes.
00:14 - Is she?
00:15 Okay, okay.
00:16 - She's saying hello to everyone.
00:16 - So beautiful.
00:17 - So, Liberty Wildlife helps nurture the nature
00:21 of Arizona through wildlife rehab and education.
00:24 - And this weekend, they have a special event going on.
00:27 Callie's gonna tell us all about it.
00:29 But with the help of our feathery friend,
00:31 is education manager, Laura Hackett.
00:33 Laura and Callie, thank you both for being here.
00:35 - Thank you for having us today.
00:36 - Absolutely.
00:37 - Okay, what kind of owl is she?
00:39 - She's a great horned owl, which is the most common owl
00:41 that you find throughout North America.
00:43 So, I've already heard loads of stories
00:44 from people here today about having them in their backyard,
00:46 and they certainly are all over the place talking.
00:49 - And is she full grown?
00:50 - She is, she's only about two years old,
00:52 so she's making little begging noises right now.
00:53 When she gets older, she'll get that actual hoo, hoo sound
00:56 that you guys are used to.
00:57 - Right, and you were telling me,
00:58 you were telling me that earlier,
00:59 that she's not mature enough quite yet
01:02 to make those noises, but so two years old,
01:04 will she grow anymore?
01:05 - No, she's fully grown.
01:06 They grow to full size fairly quickly.
01:07 - Great.
01:08 - But are the males bigger?
01:09 'Cause I know I've seen like big ones, is that?
01:12 - No, actually the females are bigger.
01:14 So Callie's a pretty good sized female.
01:16 She's a little, she's comfortable right now,
01:17 so she'll squat, but when they stand up at attention,
01:19 they can look really, really big.
01:20 - She did kind of just stretch out a little bit right now.
01:22 - Yes, she did, so.
01:23 - Oh my goodness, she's even bigger.
01:24 So, tell me a little bit about her and her diet,
01:26 and just kind of what she eats, and what she does.
01:28 - She is the apex predator, so she likes meat.
01:32 So she is great for people who wanna get rid of rodents
01:34 in their yards, or anything like that.
01:36 - Great, meat, that's it, and rodents.
01:39 (laughing)
01:41 - Our camera guy earlier, Stu, was like,
01:42 "We could maybe find, anybody got a mouse around here?
01:44 "We wanna feed her."
01:45 - Yeah, yeah.
01:46 - Get her something, very cool.
01:47 - Oh my goodness.
01:48 - She's beautiful.
01:49 - Let's talk about the programs you have,
01:50 'cause this again, how you actually help wildlife
01:52 out there, very important.
01:53 - Right, our mission is actually to take care
01:56 of all the orphaned, injured, and sick native wildlife
01:59 in Arizona, rehabilitate them, and get them back
02:01 to the wild, and then occasionally, there are some
02:03 that cannot be released for whatever reason,
02:05 and they can go over to our education permit.
02:07 So we can do both the hospital side of things,
02:10 but as well as the education side of things,
02:12 and that's what our campus is all about.
02:13 - And the one thing you say about returning back
02:15 that you can't do, and that's usually because someone
02:17 has gone and found them, or we have people that go
02:20 up north camping, and they see a owl or something
02:23 out there, a baby one, they grab it and bring it home,
02:26 which is not the smart thing to do, right?
02:28 - No, unfortunately that's what happened with Callie.
02:30 She was found on the ground, and instead of somebody
02:32 bringing her to us right away so we could do
02:34 the right thing and raise her so that she could be released,
02:36 they held onto her, so she has no fear of humans,
02:38 which is not good for an owl released into the wild.
02:41 So that would be dangerous for her,
02:42 and for humans in the wild.
02:44 - Oh wow, and so, I mean, I would assume this,
02:46 but I'm guessing then that these are not animals
02:48 that are pets, these are animals that are wild,
02:50 that if you were to find one in trouble,
02:52 they need to bring them somewhere like what you guys do,
02:55 somewhere like Liberty, to make sure that they can be
02:57 rehabilitated and released back to live their best owl life.
03:00 - Exactly, that's the whole point, is wildlife is wild,
03:02 and they should not be your pets, and we are the ones
03:04 that you should reach out to if you have any questions,
03:06 and we have a hotline, and we have volunteers
03:08 all the time to help out if any questions arise.
03:11 - Oh, that's great.
03:11 So let's talk a little bit about what's going on
03:13 this weekend.
03:14 - Yeah, we're really excited.
03:15 We have our first annual El Rio Vivo event
03:17 on Saturday the 2nd, and it starts out with a walk
03:20 along the Riverwalk, which is along the Rio Salado,
03:23 just south of Sky Harbor Airport,
03:24 so very central for everyone.
03:26 It's about a mile and a half walk out and back,
03:29 and then we have an arts and music festival upon return,
03:32 where we have local artists selling their work,
03:35 and then we also have local musicians playing
03:37 throughout the rest of the day.
03:38 - Oh, that's great.
03:39 Are there gonna be any animals out there
03:40 for people to hang out with?
03:41 - Of course, of course.
03:42 At the very end of the walk, to entice you to get to the end,
03:45 we'll have an eagle there for pictures.
03:46 - Wow.
03:47 - Yep, and then of course back on our campus,
03:49 we have all of our non-releasable animals,
03:51 from the owls to kestrels to even California condors
03:54 for people to see.
03:54 - Wow, very cool. - Yeah, it's amazing.
03:56 - I just have to say, Brad, you're doing very, very well.
03:59 - Thank you, I'm very--
04:00 - You are really close to me right now,
04:01 and she's over there chatting away,
04:03 and you're not freaking out.
04:04 I'm impressed. - If you notice I'm leaning,
04:05 and the door's open right here, I will--
04:06 - You're likely, just in case.
04:07 - I really have to be out there.
04:08 - Just in case, we're prepared.
04:09 - I do have a question, just remind, well,
04:11 not a question, but just remind people is that
04:13 we're actually in their native land, you can say,
04:17 because I see coyotes down here in our Arcadia area,
04:21 we have the owls and stuff, so that's something
04:23 we have to remember is that they're not out of place,
04:25 we're the ones kinda like out of place in their area.
04:27 - Exactly, and that's one of the things we try to teach kids
04:29 that come for field trips or anything like that,
04:30 that we need to coexist because they were here first,
04:33 and we can share this land together.
04:34 - So, I like that, there you go.
04:35 - That's a beautiful sentiment, yeah, I love that.
04:37 All right, well, so you have your event this weekend,
04:39 and then really quickly, where can everybody go
04:40 to find more information?
04:41 - You can go to libertywildlife.org,
04:43 and we'll have all the information
04:44 on our events page there, and of course,
04:45 we have social media, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
04:48 - Great, thank you.
04:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]