An injured bald eagle that was rescued by American Bald Eagle Foundation staff over the weekend had to be euthanized.
It all started at around 5 a.m. on Saturday, when a resident living on Sawmill Road woke up to the sounds of eagles screaming. It is unclear what exactly happened, but foundation science director Maia Edwards said she woke up to text messages about the injured eagle and sprang into action with three interns.
“The eagle looked badly injured. It had a severe left wing injury, and it was lying on the ground,” Edwards said.
The American Bald Eagle Foundation (ABEF) does not have a rehabilitation license so Edwards said they can only rescue birds, stabilize them at the facility then send them elsewhere.
“We got the bird and brought it back to our little clinic that we have at the foundation, and gave it some painkillers and stabilized it and drove it to Seaplanes [that] afternoon,” she said.
Edwards thinks the bald eagle was a male due to its size. Female bald eagles are typically larger and since all of the eagles at foundation are female, it was easy to spot the difference. This is still a guess, however, as Edwards said a blood test is required to be definitive.
She is also not sure how old he was.
“I think he was young though, because he did still have a couple of feathers that were mottled, kind of brownish white, instead of either all black or all white, which would signify full adulthood,” she said. “So I would say a young eagle but not a juvenile.”
The bald eagle was then sent to the Alaska Raptor Center in Sitka where experts tried to save it. But on Sunday morning, less than 24 hours after the bald eagle left Haines, Edwards woke up to another text, this time from Sitka’s Raptor Center letting her know of the bald eagle’s passing.
The humerus was broken, which is usually a pretty easy fix, Edward said.
“The problem was a torn ligament at the elbow. The elbow skin had a hole, also. It was too torn up. They would have tried to fix the wing and splint it if not for that ligament.”
Birds are very fragile, said Edwards. “It’s very tough to fix wing injuries, especially because of their hollow bones. And also with a torn ligament, it would have a very low chance of survival to begin with. So it was humanely euthanized.”
Hearing this news doesn’t get easier for Edwards who has been working with injured raptors for seven years.
“In this line of work, it is very usual that this is the case when birds get injured. And of course, just getting there and arriving at the site and picking up the bird is always very emotional, especially seeing that injury and how bad it was,” she said.
The team at the foundation was impacted by the news as well. “We were pretty silent. It’s never an easy thing to deal with, in wildlife rehabilitation.”
Losing an animal on the job can be like losing a pet.
“It’s always hard,” she said. “I think the hardest thing is realizing that slowly you become used to it. As you experience it more and more, it becomes part of life. You know, this is just how it is and I have conflicted feelings about it like yeah, that it’s part of life in wildlife rehabilitation, and it’s normal but also feeling desensitized to it also, it feels wrong somehow.”
Edwards said she wouldn’t do anything differently given the chance. She just wishes the foundation obtained a rehabilitation license. When the Juneau Raptor Center was still open, it was only a 30-minute flight away so they sent the birds they rescued over there easily. Edwards said they don’t rescue as many birds as in Juneau and Sitka. Now with the closing of Juneau’s facilities, Edwards said they are working to get the license since the next closest spot is in Sitka which is further away.
“We really wish that we had the capacity to be able to get our rehab permit as soon as possible, because that would have shortened the time of suffering for that eagle. If we had been able to have the proper resources and training to be able to care for it here. It wouldn’t have to go on that long plane ride to Sitka, and if we had the proper equipment here to euthanize it, then the suffering wouldn’t have to be prolonged,” she said.
Later Sunday afternoon, there was a mood shift when foundation staff got another phone call, this time about an eaglet that fell out of its nest on Beach Road.
“So there’s a pair of eagles that nest out there, every year apparently. Something happened, either [one] got pushed out by the parents because they thought it was weak or something. Sometimes they do that if they have too many nestlings in the nest,” she said. “But it was pretty stunned, it fell about 25 to 30 feet to the ground.”
Edwards and her team drove to the area and realized the eaglet was too young to be fully fledged from the nest and therefore couldn’t fly yet. The sex of the eagle was undetermined without testing.
“The [eaglet] is still very dependent on being fed. We think it’s about five weeks old just about so most of the wing feathers are not fully grown in yet. The [eaglet] has got all fluffy down feathers as well. And its beak is still all black and the feathers are all brown with brown eyes just like all juvenile bald eagles are.”
Edwards brought the eaglet in and did a full body checkup on. Due to the eaglets chances of survival, they decided to name it.
“It was holding on to some ferns in one of its talons. So we gave it the nickname Fern,” she said.
Fern did not have visible injuries of any kind.
“[Fern] needs to be properly cared for since it can’t hunt. And the parents seem to have abandoned it. So Fern will be sent out to Sitka [Sunday], on the same flight that we sent the eagle out on yesterday,” Edwards said.
Fern is expected to make a full recovery and be released back into the wild. The outcome was welcomed good news for the crew.
“I think yesterday we were all a bit sad about what happened with the other eagle, [especially after] seeing how much pain it was in. But today has been more hopeful. Because seeing that new life the little fledgling and apparently there is another fledgling in at the Alaska raptor center right now that they also picked up recently,” she said. “So it’ll have a nest mate to grow up with, and then be released at the end of the summer once it’s able to fly.”