Blake Hall
What do you do when you retired from the United States Navy after serving 20 years as a Seabee in Iraq, Bosnia, and elsewhere?
You dedicate your life to saving and rescuing animals, establish the largest rehabilitation center in the state of Mississippi, by chance have someone photograph you while holding an injured owl, wait for that hooting bird to hug you, and become an overnight viral superstar.
By a happy accident, that’s pretty much what happened to retired Equipment Operator 1st Class Douglas Pojeky, who runs the nonprofit Wild at Heart Rescue and was recently documented visually getting a loving embrace from Gigi, a great horned owl, which was not only shared on Facebook thousands of times, but was even featured in The New York Times with the headline “Owl Hugs Man*”.
“My phone never rang so much,” Pojeky told the Gray Lady. “It’s really rewarding in a sense because we work really hard at what we do.”
More from the NYT:
What the organization does entails answering hundreds of calls every day, but usually about an animal in need. Mr. Pojeky said Wednesday that the call about the owl, dubbed GiGi because of her gigantic size, came from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in May.
GiGi, a great horned owl, had a concussion and two types of infections — and she was unable to stand up.
“She was knocking on death’s door,” Mr. Pojeky said. “Of all the animals I’ve rehabbed, I did not think she was going to make the recovery.”
Days after GiGi came into the group’s care, Mr. Pojeky left to visit his home state, Michigan. The now internet-famous hug happened upon his return.
While it may be the first time America was introduced to Pojeky and his animal whispering abilities via photographic evidence, it’s certainly not his first rodeo in this most adorable arena.
Here he is with a bald eagle back in 2014 (photo via Seabee Magazine):
And, with a fawn:
And a bobcat:
And here he is inspecting a wild pelican after he saved it from drowning:
Aww shucks.