BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The door to the large portable kennel opened and the adult bald eagle immediately took flight down the levee toward the Mississippi River.
There, she stopped. Sitting at the base of the levee near the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, she paused to look around a bit, seeming to pose for the cameras used to document her release after four months at the school recovering from a broken shoulder.
Just as Javier Nevarez, associate professor of zoological medicine at LSU, decided she’d been on the ground too long and started down the levee to get her to take flight, the bald eagle decided to do just that and made her way up into a nearby tree to get a better view.
“She’s just hungry,” Nevarez said, noting the eagle was checking out what might be available.
The injured bald eagle released in late March was found in the New Orleans area earlier this year and eventually was brought to the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, where the fractured bone in her right shoulder was allowed time to heal. He said the eagle was likely hit by a car.
“Fortunately, the fracture itself was already healing on its own so we didn’t have to do much,” he said. “Her chances are pretty good.”
About half of the 12 to 15 bald eagles the Vet School treats every year have gunshot wounds, said Nevarez, who urged people to remember that the animal remains protected by federal law.
Populations of the bald eagle have been on the rebound after they went through a large decline nationwide, primarily because of the widespread use of the insecticide DDT.
The birds ate fish and other animals exposed to DDT, causing eggshells to thin and more likely to break under their parents’ weight.
DDT was banned in the United States in 1972 and the bald eagle was taken off the Endangered Species list in 2007. However, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Lacey Act, all prohibit killing, capturing or harming the bald eagle.
This eagle was kept indoors for three months, then in the flight cage for another month to let her regain her flying strength, Nevarez said.
He compared it to an injured runner working up to run again, rather than trying a marathon immediately.
Students would come into the cage and force the bird to fly from one side of the flight area to the other.
At first, she could only fly back and forth a couple times before getting winded. Over time the bird got stronger, Nevarez said.
To ensure that wild animals don’t get comfortable being around people, he said, sometimes students bang pots and pans or make other noises so that, despite being fed by people every day, wild animals associate people with unpleasantness.
“Make sure they really realize that we’re not their friends,” Nevarez said.
This eagle likely will leave the area and head north in the next couple weeks, maybe even flying as far as Canada, he said.
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Information from: The Advocate, https://theadvocate.com
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