State trooper saves seagull from I-5 traffic

It wasn’t your usual ride-along, as a State Patrol trooper who saved a seagull from the middle of I-5 took the bird on a call to catch a crook.

State Patrol trooper Bart Maupin was called to a report of a “large Bird in the road” on I-5 in Blaine. The bird’s wing was broken and it was sitting on the centerline, according to WSP spokesman Keith Leary.

Leary reports the trooper put the injured bird in the back seat of his patrol car for a ride to the Northwest Wildlife rehabilitation center in Deming.

Along the way, Maupin got called to help after a driver fled another trooper during a traffic stop, so the seagull got an unexpected ride-along while the suspect was chased down.

“It is not known if the seagull is a Canadian or American citizen. It refused to give information,” Leary joked.