Her Story

Tara is a red-tailed hawk who has spent all her life with people. She fell from her nest as a newly hatched chick and was hand-raised, never having the opportunity to learn to hunt. Lacking this skill, she was unable to be released back into the wild. She came to live at Wildworks in 1997 when the raptor facility where she had been living closed down. Already a veteran of educational presentations, Tara arrived at Wildworks at twenty years of age. Still traveling with us to programs on almost a daily basis, she continues on as an eloquent ambassador of goodwill for all of her kind in the wild. At Wildworks, Tara has three special things that she likes: She loves to take a shower and welcomes the spray from the garden hose; she welcomes a “hawk massage” when we scratch a special spot on her back; and she enjoys a bird’s-eye view as she surveys her surroundings while sitting tethered to her bow perch on top of Mollie’s roof, where she has a 360-degree view of mountains and oak trees. With her regal bearing and gentle nature, Tara is the perfect ambassador for raptors everywhere.