Ginger

Name: Because of his ginger colored tail
Date in: 2/21/93
Hatched: unknown
Gender: Male (discovered through DNA testing)
Age at arrival: adult; unknown
Came from: Hardin County, Kentucky

Story: Ginger came from an unlicensed rehabber in Hardin County, Kentucky. We received a call from her saying that she was picking up a Red Tailed Hawk that had been shot and requesting our assistance should she need it. She called the next day saying that the bird wasn’t hurt and that she could handle it. We advised her that she needed a permit and we offered to take the bird, but she declined our offer. A month later we got a call from the same woman stating that she had “another” red tail that couldn’t fly. We picked the bird up and discovered a healed wing fracture. Upon X-raying the bird we found that both wings had been fractured and that his body was full of shot gun pellets. A piece of shot passed through the left eye causing blindness. We later discovered that it was the same bird that we had been called about previously, and that his injuries had healed improperly due to incorrect medical care.

Ginger has proven to be an excellent surrogate parent. In the springtime it is not uncommon to observe him carefully brooding and feeding several young red tailed chicks.

Ginger is an exceptionally large male and for the first seven years we had identified Ginger as a female. In the summer of 2000 an intern from the University of Kentucky did DNA testing on the birds at RROKI discovering Ginger’s true gender. From years of habit you may still hear senior volunteers refer to Ginger as “she.”