4 Great-Horned Owls being nursed back to health

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Four baby Great-Horned Owls are now being treated at Liberty Wildlife.

Arizona Game and Fish says their mother was recently shot illegally in a homeowners backyard and had to be euthanized.

"The dad, having four of them to try and take care of, that would have been a lot of work for the dad and they most likely would not have succeeded, so Arizona Game and Fish decided to pull them and brought them into us so we can finish the care for them and rehab," said Jan Miller, of Liberty Wildlife.

Miller says they're double in size, thanks to the foster mom taking care of them.

"As soon as you put those babies in, they will make a little noise and start begging and she immediately takes over and she will start feeding them," she said.

This whole process is to rehab them out of the facility, but before the four baby owls can be released back into the wild, they have to learn how to fly and hunt on their own.

"Flying's instinct, but they have to hone their skills, though it's not as east to land and deal with wind and different elements out there when they're flying and so that's something that they have to work on," Miller said.

At the same time, Miller hopes the owls will be ready by June.

"They have a couple more weeks with her and then we are going to put them into a flight cage with a mentor bird where they have more room to fly and hone the flight skills," she said. "Then, we try them with live prey and then they learn to hunt from that bird and then they will be ready to go."

The homeowner who shot the owl was cited because great-Horned Owls are federally protected animals.