Raptor Center nurses injured eagle back to health

BY SEBASTIAN STUDIER PRESS INTERN

The University of Minnesota Raptor Center staff returned White Bear Lake’s struggling eagle in addition to a new chick to the nesting site to reunite with the adults.

This young bird, which was found to have “internal trauma” according to Lori Arent, Assistant Director at the Raptor Center, was located and picked up by experienced falconer Frank Taylor who brought the eagle to Gail Buhl, the person responsible for stabilizing the dehydrated bird with subcutaneous fluids.

“Lots of times, these birds are dehydrated,” said Arent. “One of the first things you want to do is rehydrate.”

Buhl held the bird overnight in her basement triage station before bringing it into the Raptor Center the next day.

Currently, all of the new birds that the Raptor Center takes in must go through a quarantine period while being tested for avian influenza. The Raptor Center immediately placed the eagle in its quarantine space and tested it for avian influenza by taking a blood sample and mouth swab.

The bird remained in the quarantine area until the tests came back negative and staff was able to move the bird into the regular clinical hospital space.

Once the eagle was in the clinical area, Raptor Center staff was able to run more advanced diagnostic procedures on the bird, including an x-ray procedure called a radiograph.

It was then that the bird was found to have internal trauma.

“It must have had some type of collision,” Arent said. “It had a little bit of blood internally, outside of the organs.”

What the bird needed now was simply time to recover from the internal hemorrhaging under supportive care including fluids and food to keep the eagle in good health during its recovery process.

On July 9, the bird was medically cleared for re-nesting, and rehabilitation staff started to get in contact with the homeowner as well as Taylor to devise a plan to get the eagle back home. The Raptor Center wanted to make sure that the adults were still in the nest and that it was a safe environment for the eagle to return to.

The young eagle was sprawled on the ground, unable to move when Taylor found it. Taylor believes that it may have tried to jump the nest before it was fully ready to fly.

Both adults remained in the nest and it was found that there was another chick in the nest that the parents were currently nursing.

According to Arent, the Raptor Center knew that this pair of eagles was a traditional breeding pair and a pair that had been using the nesting site for years.

“They’re pretty loyal to it,” Arent said.

“We weren’t as concerned about returning the original chick because that bird knew the area, it had a mental image of that.”

In addition to the original chick, the Raptor Center possessed another eagle at the time that it could not reunite with its original parents and saw a potential opportunity to release it with a new set of parents because it was very similar in age to the original chick.

“We brought that one with us just in case the situation would allow us to potentially foster a second bird there,” Arent said.

The Raptor Center decided to return the eagle in the evening of July 14 because that would allow the eagle to immediately reunite with its parents.

“A little bit before dark, typically, they’re not going to want to move or fly very far,” Arent said. “They want to start

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