Man saves a bird of prey which then never leaves his side: "He's thanking me for helping him" (+ VIDEO)
We all know how much animals are able to give us special, warm emotions with their gestures and expressions of affection. Usually, however, it is dogs, cats and other "domestic" animals that do this. They become attached to us, they give us love and they trust us - after all they are used to contact with humans and this tends not to disturb them. And in fact, there are some wild animals that, with a bit more effort (and only after much difficulty), would allow humans to interact with them and, even further, to touch them.
This was not the case for the subject of the story we want to tell you here, however. Steven is a man committed to protecting the environment and his job is to identify and eradicate parasites. But let's see what happened on one very normal working day for Steven.
Steven Gonzales, along with a trainee of his, was on duty and was about to check out a client's yard when he noticed something odd. In a tub full of water there was a large bird trying to escape. Who knows why the bird had fallen into the tub? The fact is that due to wet wings becoming waterlogged and weighing much, much more than normal, the bird was unable to take flight and get out of its predicament. The bird was an endangered bird of prey and it could have reacted negatively in the presence of a man - but in this case it was different.
Steven immediately approached the flailing bird and was amazed to see it remained calm while he tried to catch him. Steven said: "He did not get upset, but he made sure that I could catch him. He understood that I wanted to help him and he trusted me. I grabbed him by the legs and pulled him out of the water".
There was a moment when the bird started to flap its wings, but then it let Steven continue to take care of it. Evidently the bird had a sixth sense and sensed that that human was there for him and would never hurt him. For some time he hasn't left Steven's side: "He felt calm and protected being next to me, he didn't want to leave me." said Steven. All of this was filmed by Steven's assistant and was fortunately made public.
When the animal had calmed down and his fear had passed, Steven contacted Cave Creek, a nonprofit that deals with animals in need. They would be the caretakers of the bird of prey until it made a full recovery.
In the days that followed, Steven was kept updated on his feathered friend's progress and was able to give him a name as well. "I called him Lucena, after my daughter". Always a great animal lover, Steven has also worked as a volunteer for the bird's conservation, so he had no fear in approaching a bird that can usually be intimidating and dangerous.
It's always nice to hear stories like this and to know that wonderful and exciting episodes happen all over the world just like this one. The images in the video prove it.
