Hawk release a memorial to local man

Mona Rut­ger, from Back to the Wild Wildlife Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­ter, holds a red-tail hawk on a Cty. Rd. 24 farm south of Belle­vue Sat­ur­day after­noon. (Gazette photo by Becky Brooks)

By Becky Brooks

Man­ag­ing Editor

BVUnews@civitasmedia.com

For Rose Mary Bartl, and about 40 fam­ily and friends, Sat­ur­day was a spe­cial day to remem­ber her late hus­band, Edmund.

With a light layer of snow on the ground of the old fam­ily farm on Cty. Rd. 24, south of Belle­vue, they all gath­ered and hud­dled around noon.

Ed died on Jan. 21 and Sat­ur­day was a type of memo­r­ial to a man, who was a ded­i­cated Belle­vue Eagle mem­ber, his wife explained.

“He was in the hos­pi­tal with an upper res­pi­ra­tory prob­lem,” his wife shared on Sat­ur­day as those who loved the man hung next to a shed to block the wind and new snow blow­ing in.

“He was sup­posed to come home that morn­ing,” she added about 78-year-old Ed. Her hus­band of 35-year, though, died that morn­ing of a mas­sive heart attack.

When the fam­ily needed to pick non-profit groups for memo­ri­als for his funeral, Rose picked Back to the Wild Wildlife Reha­bil­i­ta­tion & Nature Edu­ca­tion Cen­ter in Castalia.

“He was always inter­ested in Mona Rut­ger,” Rose Mary Bartl said about the woman who returns hun­dreds of injured ani­mals to their habi­tat and uses those per­ma­nently dis­abled to edu­cate the public.

On Sat­ur­day, Rut­ger was slated to give an edu­ca­tion pre­sen­ta­tion at the Belle­vue Eagles Aerie 490 in downtown.

Bartl said her hus­band had just men­tioned that he wanted to visit Back to the Wild him­self in Castalia prior to his death. Rose Mary said the topic came up, because there was a story on the cover of an area news­pa­per in her husband’s hos­pi­tal room.

Slightly before noon on Sat­ur­day, a Back to the Wild van pulled into the farm drive, com­ing all the way to the back by the build­ings because fam­ily and vis­i­tors had vehi­cles lin­ing the lane all along the way.

“He had spo­ken about this,” Rose said.

As a memo­r­ial to Ed, Back to the Wild and Rut­ger brought a reha­bil­i­tated red-tail hawk to the fam­ily farm to release Saturday.

Rut­ger exited her van with an assis­tant and then brought out the hawk. She shared the bird’s his­tory and the back­ground of Back to the Wild.

“Every sin­gle time you get cov­ered in goose­bumps,” Rut­ger said about releas­ing a bird back into to its nat­ural habitat.

With Rose Mary stand­ing next to her in the snow and cam­eras flash­ing, the hawk was released to fly up and around the old farm. It cir­cled and trav­eled up along Cty. Rd. 24 to land in a tree next to the house that Ed and Rose called home.

Rut­ger said this hawk had flown into a build­ing and nearly bro­ken its beak off. “They do regrow,” she said, but she explained it took almost a year and shap­ing with a Dremel to get the bird back in shape.

Back to the Wild, a 501C (3) non-profit cor­po­ra­tion has over 50 large birds includ­ing Amer­i­can Eagles at its facil­ity. It also reha­bil­i­tates wildlings. An eagle was one of the birds she was tak­ing to the Eagles Club that after­noon for her visit.

Rut­ger said the non-profit cen­ter received sev­eral hun­dred dol­lars from those remem­bered Ed Bartl.

“Every nickel and penny helps,” she said.

The facility’s bud­get is nearly $350,000 annu­ally and it is fund­ing com­pletely from dona­tions — it is not a gov­ern­ment sup­ported agency.

Each year, Rut­ger and vol­un­teers visit with 70,000 school chil­dren in the region to share wildlife edu­ca­tion. For infor­ma­tion on Back to the Wild visit www.backtothewild.com or find it on Facebook.

On Sat­ur­day, Ed’s many loved ones were in awe as the hawk flew from Rutger’s hand.

His sis­ter, Mary Cather­ine Nick­ell, who was there bun­dled in the cold shared, “I thought it was beau­ti­ful and nice in hon­or­ing the mem­ory of my brother.”

Posted by Becky Brooks on Mar 5 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.