With a set-up like this, you’d think it’s a joke. However, it’s no laughing matter. Thanks to a lifetime of human contact and being raised essentially as a tamed pet by handler Gareth Tonen, Troy the Owl is too scared to fly. It’s not the flying part that bothers him, it’s the heights part. The owl has a heights phobia, and will only fly about 7 feet off the ground, because that’s only as high up as his handler can reach!
The owl, who lives at the Hawk Conservancy Trust in Andover, Hampshire, has caused quite a consternation among the British animal sanctuary’s staff. “He doesn’t know how to sit in trees or hunt. He sees everything from human-eye level. He does not see the point in sitting in a tree unless Gareth is in the tree. I don’t think he even knows he’s an owl – he thinks he’s a Gareth,” said the facility’s Ashley Smith.
The only solution, it seems, is for Gareth to teach Troy how to be an owl, and that means he has to climb trees himself and bring the owl along! At least it’s a fear that you can easily best, and not an unusual phobia like a fear of food.
Tags: unusual animals, Troy the owl, Troy, owl afraid of heights, owl too afraid to fly, tamed owl afraid of heights, Gareth Tonen, Andover, Hampshire, UK, Hawk Conservancy Trust, phobias
