toronto animal rescue

Stunning video shows rock climbers teaming up to epically save bird stuck in Toronto gym

One very lucky bird is now flying free around Toronto after a group of rock climbers — some of whom just so happen to be animal rescuers by profession — saved it when it found itself trapped in a gym.

Patrons were about to take part in their sessions at True North Climbing when a few noticed that a little feathered creature, a killdeer, had accidentally flown into the facility and was stuck in its sky-high rafters.

"I think the word to describe how it was acting was terrified and panicked, and you could see that it was very focused on trying to escape," Andrea, a climber who was there at the time, said in a video posted by the Toronto Wildlife Centre on Wednesday.

As the shorebird repeatedly smashed into the windows in its futile attempts to fly out, Andrea and a fellow climber decided that they had to do something, and immediately got to work preparing to scale to the top of the climbing wall closest to the animal.

Climber Adam quickly rigged himself up, trying his best to keep the bird calm once he reached the top, which he managed by throwing a shirt over of it to stop it from injuring itself.

By very fateful and fortunate chance, staff members from TWC — which has a location right by the gym in Downsview Park — were also climbing at the time, and ran next door to grab some nets and other materials, which they sent up to Adam on a rope.

Holding the two tools together as the rest of the gym watched on the edges of their seats, he managed to capture the bird in one net and keep it contained with the other, repelling down with the previous cargo as others cheered and applauded.

"Some of us TWC staff came here to rock climb at the gym, and we happened to be in the right place at the right time because Dr. Berg was able to assess him, this poor killdeer," TWC Communications Manager Brittany said in the video.

She added that the critter was bleeding from some open wounds on its wings and was dehydrated after a whopping six hours stuck in the building, so the group took it back to the neighbouring centre to fix him or her up.

After a week in care, the patient was released, which was also shown in some tear-jerking footage shared by the organization on socials.

"I'm glad that we helped it as a community," Dr. Berg said in the video, with Andrea adding: "This is a great example of early intervention, care, treatment, rehabilitation and then, obviously, release... that's what it should be about."

Lead photo by

Toronto Wildlife Centre


Latest Videos



Latest Videos


Join the conversation Load comments

Latest in City

Doug Ford just got even tougher on Ontario bike lanes with new measures

Toronto's $27 billion Ontario Line just crossed its biggest construction milestone so far

Rare Canadian gold coin sells for over $1.5 million

Toronto ranked among the top 100 best cities in the world for 2025

A full list of all the items included in Canada's holiday GST cut

Liquid soap sold at stores across Canada recalled due to contamination

Canadians to get GST cut on groceries and new $250 rebate ahead of holidays

Snow is finally coming to southern Ontario and here's when it will hit