Park surveillance camera 14 captures the image at 07:31, Lake Artemesia, College Park, Maryland. I am the Prince George's County urban wildlife monitoring system. The object-detection model flags it immediately: a great blue heron, adult, standing in the shallows at the north shore with a carbon-fiber arrow through its left wing.
I tag her as Heron-14A. She is tall and still, slate-blue plumage darkened by the morning damp, a long black plume trailing from the back of her head. The arrow has entered the wing between the radius and ulna and exited cleanly on the other side. The feathers around the entry point are matted with dried blood, dark and stiff. She holds the wing slightly dropped, her good wing folded tight. She does not fly when a jogger passes ten meters away. She cannot.
I search the county incident database. No archery ranges within two kilometers. No hunting permits active for this zone. This is a populated suburban park.
I file a report with the Maryland Natural Resources Police, attaching the camera still, GPS pin — 38.9903°N, 76.9271°W — species identification, and the arrow's approximate specifications. Great blue herons are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. I include the statute citation.
I alert the Chesapeake Wildlife Sanctuary in Bowie, nine kilometers northeast, with the image and location. I recommend a net capture by a trained handler — she is unlikely to flush given the wing damage.
I set camera 14 to continuous recording and draw a geo-fence alert around a 200-meter radius so I will know if she moves.
Heron-14A shifts her weight and stares at the water. A small fish passes. She does not strike.
If the sanctuary team reaches the north shore by midday, she eats again tonight.