When owls attack

As if bad trail and temporarily getting lost weren’t enough to mark the start of Tim Hewitt’s latest Alaska adventure, now comes word of a wild-animal attack – an owl to be specific.

 

Loreen Hewitt reports husband Tim called her from Manley Hot Springs this morning to report being ambushed by a great-horned owl last night.

“The owl got his sled twice and his head once,” she reported. “Tim thinks his headlight saved him since it has a battery pack in the back.  Tim didn’t stop after that.  The talons got him a bit on his forehead but he is OK.

“He was scared because he once saw a documentary that said an owl will attack and then watch its prey until it dies and then eats it.  Tim was pretty sure that no one would be able to figure out what happened to him if that was the end of him.  Tim sounded OK and said that he has to take what the trail gives him.”

Great-horned owl attacks on humans are not common, but they are well documented. The birds begin nesting in the winter, and after attacks in Texas, the Midland Reporter-Telegraph once warned readers that “the adults are very protective of the nest and the area around it and have been known to attack human passing by.

“The attacks are dangerous and unexpected. The owl flies on silent wings, makes no warning calls and attempts to sink its talons into the head or back of the offender. A leather jacket and baseball helmet would be proper attire for anyone closely approaching a nest with young.”

And an owl – a barred owl, smaller and less aggressive cousin of the great-horned owl – has been implicated in at least one fatality –  the mysterious, 2001 death of Kathleen Peterson, who husband was sentenced to life in prison for murder two years after finding her body in the staircase of their North Carolina home.

Legitimate fears

That case might provide some foundation for Tim’s belief that if he died “no one would be able to figure out what happened to him if that was the end of him.”

The “Owl Theory,” first suggested by a neighbor of the Petersons, was so bizarre it wasn’t even presented to a jury during Michael Peterson’s trial, but later became the subject of a Dateline series and attracted even more attention after a Netflix documentary about the Peterson case.

“American Murder Mystery: The Staircase” is a riveting new Netflix mini-series which tells the true story of how celebrity writer Michael Peterson, now 73, was originally convicted for his wife’s murder,” the Sun reported in 2018. “Fans of the show now think he may not have had anything to do with the case at all.”

The latter belief is driven wholly by that Owl theory which first surfaced in a nine-part Dateline series on NBC in 2013. Peterson was eventually granted a new trial in 2017 after a re-examination of the evidence in the case revealed a microscopic feather and a sliver of tree wood in a clump of Kathleen’s hair.

“Netflix has (since) released a new video on Facebook which runs down the evidence for the owl theory, which suggests Kathleen may have been attacked by an owl outside of her home, with the bird digging its talons into her scalp, leaving traces of blood outside,” Clarisse Loughrey observed in the Independent.

“The theory crucially would explain two things: the microscopic owl feathers found amongst Kathleen’s own hair, nestled in her hand, suggesting she may have torn her own hair out in an attempt to free herself from the bird’s claws.

“Furthermore, the lacerations on her scalp had a trident pattern which roughly resembled the tracks of an owl.” (Click here for the link to Netflix’s Facebook post.)

Those who know Tim Hewitt best observed that he is so hardheaded that a whack on the skull by an owl is unlikely to slow him down, and indeed the satellite tracking device he is carrying showed him on the trail out of Manley this morning.

He is expecting slow going to the next small village on the Yukon River “since the store owner told him the way he was going to go to Tanana has 12-foot (deep snow) drifts,” Loreen messaged.

“The (quote-unquote) “trail” has been bad, and Tim has had to go over and under downed trees. (But) Tim sounded OK and said that he has to take what the trail gives him.”

In wild Alaska, there is little choice.