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Shot Out of the Sky

In late March 2008 a bald eagle was shot with a shot gun on Bainbridge Island.  Concerned neighbors fo und the eagle and called us right away.  We rushed to the scene and struggled to stabilize the eagle.  Amazingly, she survived. 

As she recuperated, we heard reports that her mate was flying near their nest tree, looking confused by the loss of his companion.  Meanwhile, the injured eagle improved, but she also showed some signs of a possible spinal injury.  And she did not regain her ability to vocalize. In addition to her other treatments, she received free acupuncture therapy from local veterinarian Christine Susumi of Winslow Animal Clinic.

Worst of all, the eagle refused to fly. Before the summer of 2009, the method we used for letting raptors fly while still in treatment is one called creance training. It involves tying a light line to the raptor's foot and letting them test their wings, then reeling them back in. When we tried creance training with this eagle, she refused to fly. Without proof that she could fly, we had no choice but to put her on the list to become an educational bird -- meaning that she would lose her chance to return to the wild.

Yet, one more hope remained. In the summer of 2009, West Sound Wildlife finished work on the C. Keith Birkenfeld Flight Cage, a state-of-the-art building for raptors and other large birds. (See photos of the Flight Cage.) In the Flight Cage, raptors live in a large room where they can test their wings on their own time. We had some hope that the eagle would fly here, when she could do it at her own pace.

The day the Flight Cage opened, we moved this eagle and three eaglets into the largest room. The young ones set about exploring immediately, but this eagle stayed on the low perches.

Three days after her release into the Flight Cage, a volunteer came back from cleaning the cage with exciting news -- they'd seen this eagle sitting on one of the top perches! Later that day, our rehabilitation staff was delighted to confirm what the volunteer had seen. The eagle was flying!

Before another week had passed, the eagle was flying around the flight cage with ease, moving from perch to perch and bossing around the three juvenile eagles. With happy hearts, our rehabilitation staff took her off the educational bird list and moved her back to the "to be released" list. We expect to release her in the fall of 2010.

Read more about bald eagles.