Wild Within: How Rescuing Owls Inspired a Family

by Melissa Hart

Overview

Melissa Hart, a desperately lonely young divorcée and L.A. transplant, finds herself stranded in rainy Eugene, Oregon, working from home in the company of her two cats and two large mutts. At the local dog park, she meets a fellow dog owner named Jonathan: a tall, handsome man with a unibrow and hawk-like nose. When he invites her to accompany him on a drive to Portland to retrieve six hundred pounds of frozen rats and a fledgling barred owl, sparks fly!Their courtship blossoms in a raptor rehabilitation center where wounded owls, eagles, falcons, and other iconic birds of prey take refuge and become ambassadors for their species. Initially, Melissa volunteers here in order to "sink her talons" into her new love interest, but soon she falls hopelessly in love with her fine feathered charges: Archimedes, a gorgeous snowy owl; Lorax, a serene great-horned owl; and Bodhi, a baby barred with a permanently injured wing. Even as human-habituated birds, they retain a wildness that hoodwinks even the most experienced handlers. Overcoming her fears, Melissa bravely suffers some puncture wounds to get closer to these magnificent creatures.Melissa and Jonathan start out convinced they don't want children, but caring for birds who have fallen from their nests triggers a deep longing in Melissa to mother an orphaned child. Thus they embark on a heart-wrenching journey to adoption. Every page sparkles with vivid imagery and wit in this beautifully written memoir of parallel pursuits. Wild Within is, above all, about the power of love—romantic, animal, and parental—to save lives and fulfill dreams.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762796809
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/02/2014
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Melissa Hart is a nature and travel writer and the author of Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood. She teaches feature and travel writing at the University of Oregon. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, with her husband and their daughter.

Table of Contents

Foreword x

Prologue: "Clip Me" 1

1 Caged 8

2 Tooth and Talon 21

3 Disparate Species 32

4 Obligate Carnivores 46

5 Rehabilitation 57

6 Icon in the Closet 73

7 Detach with Love 83

8 Meow 93

9 Distressed Baby Great Horned Owl 106

10 "If We Have to Eat Roadkill" 117

11 Owl with a Foot Fetish 127

12 Lost Girls 140

13 Hazed 153

14 Wish You Were My Daughter 167

15 Parents in Progress 180

16 One False Move 193

17 The Red Thread 205

18 Ambiguity 217

19 Owl in the Living Room 226

20 Everything's Political 237

21 Love People, and Feed Them 245

22 Prostitutes and Bird Trainers 256

23 A Baby Who Hasn't Been Harmed 266

24 A Rescue Attempt 277

25 Always a Hidden Story 293

26 Destiny Child 302

Epilogue 313

Acknowledgments 316

Appendix (Raptor Centers and Adoption Resources) 317

About the Author 322

Editorial Reviews

07/28/2014
Hart (Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood) was a depressed, recently separated transplant to Eugene, Ore. when she met Jonathan, a volunteer at Cascades Raptor rehabilitation center, who was equally unlucky in love. What follows is the harrowing story of would-be adoptive parents and the redemptive powers of dedication to a cause, laid out in brutally honest detail. The couple's courtship begins with a road trip to retrieve six hundred pounds of frozen rats to feed the center's raptors and ends with a wedding featuring an owl ring bearer and the release of a newly healthy red-tailed hawk. While Hart begins spending time at the center to be with Jonathan, she learns quickly that volunteers often "found themselves rehabilitated along with the birds." The book follows the couple as they embark on a long, painful process to adopt a child. They find themselves shut out from adopting in Korea, and China, suffering relationship-threatening tension and a stressful social worker's visit in a home containing "half-empty Merlot bottles, eight shedding pets, and husband's collection of animal skulls." Meanwhile, Hart develops affection for a human-imprinted snowy owl named Archimedes and becomes resolved to train him despite his reputation as a "difficult bird." These twin narratives skillfully woven together make for an exciting and endearingroller coaster of a memoir. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

In this engaging memoir, Melissa Hart recounts her time spent at a raptor rehabilitation center in Oregon while also pursuing the adoption of a child. Seamlessly weaving these themes together, she illuminates how helping another species is really no different than wanting to help and raise a child in need. . . .Wild Within explores our instinctual need to nurture, both within our own species and within the animal kingdom. . . .This is a tale of seeking the world from the heart: Helping wild birds demands nothing less, and neither does adopting a child. Melissa and Jonathan were blessed, in the end, with a beautiful little girl, but it’s the time spent with the owls that lingers in a reader’s mind long after the tale has ended.

Women's Adventure

An upbeat and honest memoir of finding a soul mate and a child through aegis of hawks and owls.

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