Toni Willard Dotson wasn’t sure what was wrong with the eagle standing in the middle of the Haines Highway in late October, but she knew something was wrong and she’s never been the type to leave an injured animal to suffer.
Dotson, who works in construction, first planned to move the large bird because trucks were driving around it and she was worried it would get hit. She assumed it had an injured leg.
“It was expanding its wings, but not moving around. Just kind of limping around like it had a broken leg,” she said.
She walked over and put her jacket over it. It wasn’t moving that much but capturing the bird was still an imposing task. The average bald eagle is among the largest birds of prey in North America with wingspans that can reach eight feet.
“The closer I got, the bigger it got,” Dotson said. “But, I just didn’t want a truck to smash it.”
It’s the biggest animal she’s ever rescued, though she does remember saving a baby moose once. Dotson said she was surprised that it didn’t put up much of a fight and even more surprised at how light the bird was. She called the Department of Fish and Game in Haines to report the injury and then, cradling the bird in her lap, drove to their office to get the bird some help.
“It fought a little bit, then it calmed down after I rolled the window down,” she said. “It seemed content. I didn’t even think about bird flu.”
But that’s ultimately what the eagle was diagnosed with after it made its way to the Alaska Raptor Center in Sitka and was euthanized. It tested positive Nov. 14, becoming the Chilkat Valley’s second confirmed case of what’s known as highly pathogenic avian influenza – colloquially known as bird flu.
Bird flu wasn’t top of mind for Kathy Benner either when she first looked at the eagle as it was standing inside a kennel at Fish and Game, where staff put it after Dotson brought it to the office.
Benner, who lives several miles up the Haines Highway, is the director of Haines’ American Bald Eagle Foundation, and its avian curator. Fish and Game called her once they had the bird.
“I couldn’t really see anything wrong with it. I transferred it from their kennel to my kennel out in my car,” she said.
Benner contacted the Alaska Raptor Center in Sitka and they were able to arrange an Alaska Seaplanes’ flight to transport it that day.
She was unaware that it had tested positive for avian flu until informed by the Chilkat Valley News. When asked if she’d have handled the eagle differently, Benner said she would have asked more questions of the person who picked it up to try and figure out exactly what was wrong with it.
Alaska Raptor Center avian director Jennifer Cedarleaf said staff in Sitka also did not believe the bird was infected when it first arrived.
“[Highly pathogenic avian influenza] affects the neurological system of the bird, so often we will see a bird on the ground acting like they are drunk (stumbling, uncoordinated, circling),” Cedarleaf wrote in an email. “They often have head issues such as staring, inappropriate head position, twitching or nystagmus (involuntary, rapid, rhythmic eye movements).
But they can also just be depressed and not reacting to things as they normally would, as was the case with the eagle from Haines.
“When we were examining the bird, we could find nothing wrong with it,” she wrote. “We brought it to the Center to put it in a quarantine mew and once we had set it down, we noticed the strange way it was reacting, which was very much like it had no idea where it was or what was going on around it.”
They swabbed its rectum, and throat and sent the sample to a lab in Washington State, but it takes more than a week to get the results back. In the meantime, if a bird has any [neurological] signs, it is euthanized.
Infected birds are put into the center’s freezers and then incinerated, as was the case with the bird found in the Chilkat Valley.
Generally the Center would let a community know when a bird it receives tests positive for the avian flu, but Cedarleaf said she has been busy and thinks it must have slipped her mind in this case to let Benner know.
Benner said it’s unusual for staff from the foundation to get a call about rescuing a bird. She recently finished her end-of-year reports and tallied up five birds which needed rescuing this summer.
“We did get three bald eagles, which is unusual,” she said. “Everything gets sent to Sitka immediately, unless it’s a songbird that we can rehabilitate within a couple of days.”
The ideal protocol in the situation of an eagle, Benner said, would be for a sick bird to be taken to a location away from the foundation to be examined, as it’s a risk for the birds living in the building to potentially be exposed to wild birds and their pathogens.
In this specific case, because the flight was arranged so quickly, she said the sick eagle didn’t come near the foundation buildings and was instead taken straight to the airport.
An examiner would want to have a foot bath to clean their shoes, use sheets and gloves that can be washed and avoid putting their face next to the bird, though Benner said it’s not clear how the virus could transmit to a human in that situation.
But, she said it’s also not clear that there is a set protocol in place for handling, examining and transporting potentially sick birds.
“When I was still in Juneau, and we had quite an outbreak of it, we were told not even to risk [it]. If you get an eagle call and it looks like avian influenza, do not touch it,” she said. “They were being bombarded.”
The first cases of highly pathogenic avian flu, also known as H5N1, were detected in wildlife in Alaska in 2022. That’s also the year Haines had its first positive case, in May, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
While the risk to human health from the virus is low, it’s still possible to catch it. There have been more than 60 bird flu infections in humans reported by the Centers for Disease control since April of 2024, more than half of those in California. Canada had its first “domestically acquired case of avian flu” in a human in early November. Its public health agency linked the case to an outbreak in poultry in British Columbia.
The virus is, however, highly contagious among birds, meaning domestic bird flocks are often at risk from spread from wild birds. The state veterinarian’s office recommends that domestic poultry owners take steps to limit contact between the two, including covering coops and runs, avoiding letting birds free range in areas with wild birds, and using dedicated clothing and shoes when handling birds from your own flock.
It has also been found in wild mammals, including goats and dairy cows. In 2022, a black bear cub from Bartlett Cove in Glacier Bay National Park was diagnosed with it. It was abandoned by its mother and eventually euthanized by a Fish and Game biologist.
Confirmations of bird flu have since been recorded all over the state, including in everything from bald eagles, to domestic poultry, to a polar bear.
More recently in Juneau in late November and early October, a dozen cases of bird flu were detected in green-winged teal, American wigeons, and a Northern pintail, and mallards that were harvested by hunters.
Still, Benner said she is not worried about a widespread avian flu issue in the Chilkat Valley right now. She said she drives through the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve to get home every day – a place where thousands of eagles congregate every year.
“We would have kept on getting birds,” she said. “But that didn’t happen, so honestly I’m just really not that worried about it right now … until we see more.”
Benner said this one positive case of avian flu likely would not change much about how the foundation operates, particularly since she said staff is always cautious.
“This was one eagle that probably came in from somewhere else,” she said. “If avian influenza was here we’d be seeing it. Lots of people here have chickens, I have chickens. We’d be seeing more than just one eagle a couple months ago.”
Still, she and others said it’s important to keep in mind to take precautions when handling wild animals.
“If you’re going to pick up any wild animal, including a bird that you think is [fine, like] a baby bird that fell out of the nest, you should always wear gloves,” she said. “It’s ok to put it back in its nest, [then] go wash your hands.”
Dotson said it was frustrating to hear that the bird had avian flu and needed to be euthanized, but she wasn’t particularly worried about catching it herself. She said she researched it and saw that the public health risk was low. And, in this case, she said she didn’t handle the eagle much when she wrapped it in her jacket, which she has since washed a couple of times.
When asked if the risk of avian flu would stop her from rescuing animals in the future, she didn’t hesitate.
“No,” she said. “I know I’m going to get in trouble for that, too. I can’t help it, I can’t help it. I have to do it.”
State Fish and Game staff caution against handling wild animals and said anyone who sees a sick or dead bird should report it to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s hotline at 866-527-3358.