On Monday evening, residents in Shakopee, Minnesota, noticed two bald eagles laying on the ground in Kyle and Lesley Breimhorst’s front yard. Upon closer inspection, they realized that the two eagles were tangled in one another’s talons, unable to escape. Injured during a territorial dispute with one another, the eagles had crashed to the ground…
The police showed up but they weren’t equipped to help with the situation and calls to the University of Minnesota Raptor Center’s after-hours number weren’t being picked up. Onlookers quickly took to Twitter with pictures of the birds and pleas for help…
An exchange quickly followed between Kevin Wetherille and a number of others across the Minneapolis area as they worked to find help for the injured birds.
A tweet from a local sports personality with a larger following really helped get the ball rolling, with a veterinarian quickly getting involved…
An hour and a half after the first tweet, someone from the Raptor Center, whose after-hours phone number wasn’t being answered, responded on Twitter…
By this time, not only had a vet shown up but the Raptor Center was there too, all in less than 2 hours…
Of course, in the time it took for help to arrive, around 150 people showed up to help or just gawk at the spectacle of two majestic birds lying helpless, tangled up in one another’s grasp…
With all of the attention the two birds brought to Twitter users in Minneapolis, the Raptor Center provided an update on their blog the next day to show everyone that the birds were out of surgery and were being well-cared for, noting,
For the next couple of weeks, these birds will be treated for their soft tissue injuries and lead toxicity.
So, next time someone asks you what Twitter has done for you, you can say, “Nothing really, but let me tell you about a couple of birds in Minnesota…”
(Photos via Theresa Hart-Link, The Raptor Center, Reddit)