Rescued eagle’s bone healing well
Published: May 8, 2007
The bald eagle rescued by two brothers near the Michigan-Ohio border on Good Friday is recovering from a broken bone in his wing. But another problem — an injured wrist, possibly arthritis — could keep the bird from being released into the wild.
“I’m not encouraged,” said David Hogan, a bird rehabilitation expert who is taking care of the eagle at his home in Monroe County. “It’s bad news about the wrist. I have serious doubts about him being released into the wild. But stranger things have happened. There is still a chance. We’ll give him every benefit of the doubt.”
If the eagle is not released into the wild, it will be given to a zoo or used for education.
“I’m still optimistic, but I have to be realistic that the bird might not go back into the wild,” said Dr. Andrew Grzanowski, a bird specialist at the Canton Center Animal Hospital.
The Free Press wrote about the eagle after it was rescued April 6 by Jon and Joe Barbara, who spotted the injured bird by a railroad track, in a thicket of woods, near Monroe. It wasn’t able to fly.
After chasing the eagle through the woods, they rescued the bird and gave it to Hogan. The eagle had a fractured ulna, and Grzanowski inserted a pin to stabilize the bone.
But X-rays show calcification in the eagle’s wrist, probably from an earlier injury. “There is a lot of calcium building up around there, which indicates something happened to the bone,” Hogan said.
The wrist problem has affected the eagle’s range of motion. “I can’t open up that wing as much as I’d like,” Grzanowski said.
But there is good news. The ulna is healing. The eagle is maintaining its weight. There is no infection and the feathers, which were removed to insert the pin, are growing back.
“The actual break that we are working on is doing real well,” Hogan said. “He may fly, but I’m not sure he will fly good enough to be released. But we have a long ways to go.”
And he wonders why the eagle broke its wing in the first place.
“It may have been that he injured that wrist originally and that’s how he ended up in bad trouble and really broke his wing,” he said.
Hogan, a master falconer, has placed several birds with zoos or other educational programs.
“A lot of people are anxious to get a bird like this, that looks good and doesn’t have deformities, and can fly a little bit,” Hogan said. “They are more valuable than a standing display somewhere.”
If everything goes according to plan, the pins will be removed from the eagle’s wing May 17, and it will be moved to a 20-foot by 30-foot enclosure. “He’ll be able to flap around and get up on stuff and get his balance,” Hogan said. “After a week or so, we’ll start training him. After that, he’ll progress pretty quick, week after week. After a few weeks, we’ll have a good idea of how he’s doing.”
For now, the eagle is being kept in a dark dog kennel, so he doesn’t move around. “He has to stay real quiet for those fractures to heal,” Hogan said.
Some eagles are extremely active and others are quiet and laid back.
This eagle is always skittish after returning from the vet, where it goes once a week for a checkup and physical therapy. “That’s very stressful and scary for him,” Hogan said. “He doesn’t know what we are doing. So then, it takes all week, until he’s comfortable coming over to me and getting his food, so he doesn’t get scared.
“That’s Mother Nature for you,” Grzanowski said.
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