Nassau police rescue injured osprey near bay in East Rockaway

Nassau police marine officers were forced to make an avian rescue Thursday morning.

The officers rescued an injured osprey they discovered near Harbor Road off Hewlett Bay in East Rockaway around 9 a.m. Thursday, according to a news release.

Officers removed the bird from the road and brought it indoors. After police contacted the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the bird of prey was escorted by a state and federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator to a rehabilitation facility. Once it is treated for its injuries — the nature of which police did not specify — the osprey will be released back into the wild.

The osprey, the scientific name for which is Pandion haliaetus, is a species of special concern in New York, which the DEC categorizes as “native species which are not yet recognized as endangered or threatened, but for which documented evidence exists relating to their continued welfare in [New York] State,” according to the department’s online list of endangered and threatened species.

According the DEC, Long Island is one of two main areas where ospreys breed in New York State; the other is the Adirondack mountains. The creatures, which primarily eat live fish they catch using their talons, settle along the coastline and on lakes and rivers.

Ospreys are also known for a dangerous high wire act — building nests atop power line poles they mistake for trees. To protect both the birds and their infrastructure, PSEG Long Island launched an osprey task force with environmental advocacy nonprofit The Group for the East End in 2019 to relocate ospreys that build nests on their equipment. Last month, PSEG removed an osprey nest from a utility pole in Oak Beach after the twigs caught fire.