Massachusetts State Police, Environmental Police, Animal Control, Nucar Honda combine to free hawk stuck in car grill on I-495

Normally incidents of birds getting stuck on car grills on the highway do not end up in a happy ending. This time it is different.

According to Trooper Brandon Doherty, at just after 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, The Concord Barracks took a call from a motorist who had struck a hawk on Interstate 495 northbound in Chelmsford. Troopers responded to the Chelmsford rest area on I-495 to rendezvous with the motorist. There, they found the hawk lodged in the grill of the motorist’s Honda SUV.

 Thinking quickly, Troopers on scene reached out to the Massachusetts Environmental Police, Chelmsford animal control, and technicians from Nucar Honda of Westford to strategize freeing the hawk from the grill.

 Nucar technicians volunteered to meet Troopers at the Chelmsford Rest Area and undertook a partial disassembly of the vehicle’s front to extricate the bird is the safest possible manner. The collaborative efforts of Troopers, Massachusetts Environmental Police Officers, Chelmsford Animal Control Officers, and Nucar technicians was able to free the bird. The bird was secured into a cage conscious, alert, and other than some ruffled feathers, showed no obvious signs of injury.

 Massachusetts Environmental Police took the bird to The Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in Grafton to be evaluated and recover.