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IVCC’s great horned owl dies

By Duane Price
IV Leader Staff, Nov. 13, 2003

    IVCC’s great horned owl is dead at age 16 after suffering heart and lung complications relating to old age. The deceased bird will be mounted by a local taxidermist and displayed at the college.
    Charlie, the female owl, was found in 1987 and nursed back to health by Lou Borio, former Division Chair of Natural     Sciences, thanks to a federal permit allowing the bird to remain an IVCC attraction. Charlie was unable to fly due to underdeveloped pectoral muscles.
    According to LeeAnn Johnson, Lou Borio’s replacement, Charlie became an attraction of the children’s raptor rehabilitation education programs and foster mom to numerous orphaned owlets. 
    Johnson says she hopes to obtain a new educational bird for the spring semester.