Rocklin Couple Saves Great Horned Owl Thanks To Frisbee Golf Game

ROCKLIN (CBS13) — A lucky game of frisbee golf saved a great horned owl Sunday evening.

Thanks to a Rocklin couple's unlikely encounter on the outskirts of a popular park, the bird may live to fly another day.

Dominique Peterson and Cody Moore were playing frisbee golf at Johnson Springview Park Sunday. They said it was crowded, but no one could have known about the owl suffering just feet away from the dog park.

Making no noise and blending into the color of a dry creek bed, the great horned owl needed a miracle. Thankfully it came in the form of a bad frisbee throw.

"I guess it was lucky for us I had a bad shot because it landed down there and I had to crawl into the dry creek bed to find my frisbee," said Peterson.

Peterson's unlucky shot turned into what might be the luckiest day of this owls life.

"He had flies and bugs all over him so he had to have been there for a while," said Moore.

Rescuers believe the owl had been on the ground for days. Obscured by brush, in an area thick with poison oak.

"It looked like he didn't have an eye, that it was like scratched out or something," Peterson said.

The owl had punctures in its beak and all over its face. The poor animal was covered in ants.

"He looked sad, like so sad. I could just see in his face that he looked miserable," Peterson said.

Rescuers think it may have gotten into a fight with another animal.

"Once you got real close, he picked his head up and looked at us and then just laid his head back down," Moore said.

The pair immediately called a local rescue group's hotline. A rescuer responded within minutes and said if the couple had not found this owl it probably would not have made it.

"You couldn't even see him unless you were right up on him within a couple feet," Moore said.

The owl was taken to Gold Country Wildlife Rescue at around 8 p.m. Sunday night. CBS13 has not yet been able to get an update on the owl's condition.