Thread: A beautiful sight: Eagle soars back to life

Whenever one of our bald eagles is saved I feel like it's a piece of our nation being saved. So I wanted to share this story. She's a fine lady isn't she?


Miracle for Sleeping Beauty: Eagle soars back to life
By SCOTT SANDSBERRY
Yakima Herald-Republic

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic

A female bald eagle was released back into the wild Monday, Jan. 26, 2009 by Marsha Flamm, left, and Christine Ramsey. The eagle was found Friday, Jan. 23 completely comatose and anesthetized, said Ramsey, one of the veterinarians who treated the raptor. The bird had been poisoned after feeding on a horse which had been euthanized some time ago and not disposed of properly. The eagle, believed to be more than 5 years old, was released at the Oak Creek Wildlife Area.


YAKIMA, Wash. — The caller had reported seeing a dead eagle in his pasture, so when John McGowan approached it, he certainly didn't think he was looking at Sleeping Beauty.

Yep, he thought. Dead bald eagle.

That was Friday morning.

On Monday, thanks to some quick human response and some tender, timely veterinary care, that not-so-dead eagle was soaring once again.

McGowan, who manages the Oak Creek Wildlife Area in Naches, had received a call about a dead eagle in a Nile pasture. When he rolled it over with his foot to see if he could tell what might have caused its death, he said, "One leg sort of stiffened out. Then I watched it for a minute, and it took a breath.

"One breath about every 30 seconds. That's how close to death it was."

So McGowan put the eagle into a grain-feed bag and loaded it into his truck. When he returned to the Oak Creek headquarters west of Naches, he called Marsha Flamm of the Raptor House Rehabilitation Center, an East Selah-based nonprofit center specializing in rescuing injured birds of prey.

When Flamm arrived at Oak Creek, she pulled the eagle out of the feed bag, noticed the head was kinked and presumed, as had McGowan, the eagle was beyond recovery.

"I tried to straighten the head and thought, 'Oh no, it's dead. Rigor mortis has set in,' because it was so stiff," she said. "But when I got the head in the right position, it took a deep breath." And then it, er, evacuated all over her.

"And man, did it stink, let me tell you," Flamm said. "She smelled like horse apples."

Which might have been appropriate. McGowan and Flamm believe the eagle may have been scavenging from a pasture horse that had been euthanized with a sleeping agent but had not been disposed of.

The drugs that killed the horse might then have poisoned the eagle, a possibility being investigated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the Endangered Species Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Flamm immediately took the eagle -- a 14-pound female adult bald -- to the Summitview Cowiche Veterinary Clinic, where staffers put the bird on an IV solution and tended to it for more than 30 hours. Veterinarian Christine Ramsey gave it a name: Sleeping Beauty.

By Saturday morning, Sleeping Beauty was no longer asleep. By that afternoon, she wanted out in a big way.

Ramsey and Flamm were both there at Oak Creek on Monday to release the bird back into the wild.

Flamm, whose Raptor House has long struggled with keeping its doors open for lack of money, said she hopes raptor lovers will make donations to the veterinary clinic to cover the $1,010 in expenses it took to keep the eagle alive.

As far as McGowan is concerned, that part is nothing short of a miracle.

"I would bet right there on the spot," he said, "there was no way that eagle was going to live."

But then Sleeping Beauty woke up. And was cured.

And, finally, she flew away.



How to donate
To make a donation to the Summitview Cowiche Veterinary Clinic to help pay for Sleeping Beauty’s care, send a check to the clinic at 13555 Summitview Ave., Yakima, WA 98908.

You can also send a check to Raptor House Rehabilitation Center at 40 Wise Acre Road, Yakima, WA 98901, with a notation that it is for Sleeping Beauty, and director Marsha Flamm will send back a receipt for your tax records.

Donations to the Raptor House itself can be made directly through any U.S. Bank, by check to the center, or online at www.raptorhouse.org (under membership/donations).


http://www.yakimaherald.com/stories/200 ... ck-to-life

They are beautifull birds, thanks for sharing.
I used to see a lot of them when I lived in Co.
I also know where theere are some in SoCal but I ain't saying where.

Those kind of moments are priceless. In Fla. they released an 120-pound loggerhead turtle into the Gulf after getting a four-inch shark hook out of his throat. The most beautiful moment was when four folks put him into the water, and he swam out for a bit and gave everyone on the beach tears when he gave us a goodbye splash as he dove underwater.
These are God's creatures, just like humankind.