Farewell to our Falcon Friend

Our California Raptor Center (CRC) team had to say goodbye to Apollo, one of their American Kestrel educational ambassador birds. Due to an old severe right wing injury, he had chronic shoulder problems that eventually became more painful and started to drastically impact his quality of life. The team had to make the difficult decision to humanely euthanize him.

Apollo's Story

Apollo was found near intersecting county roads in the vicinity of Woodland. He may have been hit by a car and a caring citizen rescued him and brought him to the CRC on November 11, 2017. His right wing was severely damaged and he suffered from a badly dislocated shoulder. As a result he could not fly and could therefore not be released back to the wild where he would need strong flight, good balance, and ability to hover and dive for food.

During his almost seven years at the CRC, Apollo shared a large enclosure with non-releasable Western Screech Owls that had the opposite sleep schedule as he did - they would sleep in the daytime and become active at night, while Apollo was very active in the day, always claiming a high perch in the small tree growing in the center of the space. Visitors often got to see him jumping from branch to branch and even climbing up the trunk of the tree from the ground using his needle sharp talons as climbing cleats.