A great horned owl found itself dangling helplessly from electrical wires in Big Bear, and the linemen working nearby didn’t just finish their shift and move on. They stopped to free the trapped bird, turning a routine utility job into a wildlife rescue that’s now drawing attention across Southern California.
The rescue was reported Thursday by CBS News Los Angeles, which covered footage of the owl caught in the wires before the Big Bear linemen stepped in to pull it free. The station’s report credited journalist Joy Benedict with covering the rescue. Details beyond the rescue itself, including the owl’s exact condition afterward, were not included in the station’s report.
Why Birds End Up Tangled in the First Place
Owls and other raptors are especially vulnerable around electrical infrastructure because of their size. According to The Wildlife Society, their large wingspans make it easier for them to touch two wires at once or bridge a wire and a pole, a contact point that smaller birds typically avoid. A bird perched calmly on a single wire isn’t in danger, since it never completes a circuit to the ground — but the moment a wing, foot or tangled line connects it to something grounded, the risk changes entirely, as explained by Energized by Edison.
Southern California Edison describes an avian-protection program aimed at keeping birds safe from electrocution, the utility notes on its website. The company frames the effort as more than an animal-welfare measure, stating that avian protection also goes hand in hand with preventing wildfires.
A Pattern Playing Out Beyond Big Bear
The Big Bear incident is far from an isolated case. Earlier this month, a jogger in Mesa, Arizona spotted a great horned owl hanging from a power line near Main Street and Gilbert Road, as reported by azcentral.com. In that case, the bird’s wing had become caught in fishing wire that then wrapped around the power line itself. Salt River Project crews cut the fishing line and lowered the bird, and with help from the Mesa Fire Department, secured it in a blanket. A wildlife biologist later said the owl showed only minimal feather damage, with no tissue damage or broken bones.
A similar scene unfolded in Ramona, California back in 2021, when neighbors noticed a great horned owl dangling roughly four stories above Mussey Grade Road, tangled in utility wires, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Arborist Renee Roman and a neighbor named Chris Lent used a cherry picker to reach the bird, with Roman holding it in a towel while Lent untangled a talon wrapped in thin wire. The owl, later named Owen, was driven to the San Diego Humane Society’s Project Wildlife Ramona Campus, where veterinarians removed three pieces of wire from his foot and leg as he continued healing.
The Bigger Risk to Birds and Power Grids
These rescues point to a much larger problem tracked by federal wildlife officials. Power line infrastructure kills millions of birds every year, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, with birds injured or killed both through mid-air collisions with distribution and transmission lines and through electrocution near poles.
There’s also a wildfire dimension to the issue. Measures such as retrofitting power lines and poles can limit dangerous contact points for large birds like owls and hawks.
Against that backdrop, the quick action by the Big Bear linemen stands out as a small but meaningful intervention, the kind of hands-on moment that doesn’t typically make headlines unless someone happens to catch it on camera.
