In April, a Wellington veterinarian found an injured bald eagle along State Road 80 amid the sugar cane fields near Loxahatchee. He had been struck and was unable to fly.
Now, 111 days later, he’s free. Extensive treatment and physical therapy have allowed the eagle to recover and get back out in the wild.
“There was no way I was going to drive past it,” said Dr. Carol Holland, who found the bird on April 4. She was headed to Sarasota for a horse show when she saw it stranded.
“They’re never just sitting on the side of the road like that, and I knew it had to be injured,” she said. “It was right on the side of the road — it wasn’t even in the grass.”
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Broken pelvis, swollen wing grounded American bald eagle in Palm Beach County
Doctors weren’t originally sure of what happened to the eagle but assumed he flew into something or was hit by a car based on his injuries.
Carolina Montano of the South Florida Wildlife Center said that when her Fort Lauderdale-based site received the bird, he not only had a fractured pelvis, but a swollen left wing as well.
Tammy Rubio, a founder of the Loxahatchee nonprofit bird rescue Misfit Island, and Holland were able to wrap the bird in several blankets that Holland had on hand (originally for her chihuahuas in the car with her).
“I was going to do as many blankets as I could and wrap it up because I've done that before with other birds: I’ve caught owls and different things, put them in my car, and taken them somewhere.”
“But this thing was just massive.”
This one was nearly 8 pounds. The wildlife center where he was treated didn't have his length recorded, but Holland previously said the eagle was as big as a medium-sized dog.
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Eagle rescues can be incredibly difficult. Even when downed, the birds still have full use of their beaks and talons, said Katie Gill Warner, who directs the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in Maitland.
“Eagle talons have 300 pounds (per square inch) strength and grip, so handling eagles requires training,” Warner wrote in an email. “Sometimes they can run away, making it hard to capture safely. Making matters worse, they can swim.”
Rescue was especially challenging for Holland, who hadn’t handled an eagle before. She and Rubio couldn’t take him just anywhere for recovery, though. Not only was it large, it also was federally protected, and few centers are certified to help rehabilitate them.
South Florida Wildlife Center is one of them. It immediately began treatments such as blood work and X-rays, all the while handling the bird carefully.
“As he just kind of got better, more consistent, gained weight, seemed a little more active, then we moved him into that final stage of rehabilitation, which is our flight cage,” said Montano.
The flight cage is part of a process called flight conditioning.
“If they’re injured, you introduce them to a smaller cage and then a bigger cage,” said Rubio, “Then they can start to move without harming themselves.”
The larger cage gave the eagle plenty of space to move around, as well as perches to stop off at as his condition improved and his flights grew longer.
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After nearly four months, the eagle was ready to go. Montano said they released him close to where Holland and Rubio originally found him in Loxahatchee.
“That is their claimed territory,” Montano said, adding: “He could head out, acclimate himself back to that area, and then go wherever his heart desired.”
He’s one of an unknown number of annual eagle rescues in Florida. Warner said that there’s no central tracking system for eagle rescues.
But she added that Audubon treats up to 100 bald eagles every year.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Florida has one of the densest concentrations of nesting eagles in the lower 48 states, with most of the birds based in North and Central Florida.
The Audubon Center’s website says bald eagles nearly went extinct due to hunting in the 1800s, followed by insecticide DDT in the 1950s.
It was removed from the endangered species list in 2007 but is still protected under the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
Rubio and Holland couldn’t be there for the release on July 24. The center ended up changing some of the original times it had planned.
Holland said how glad she was that it had happened and how she would have done whatever it took to make sure it was rescued.
“If I had to throw down two more blankets and catch it myself … that was my second or third option,” she said, glad that instead, Rubio was able to help her rescue it. “I was going to wrap it up and put it in the car with my chihuahuas and either carry it to Sarasota or whatever I had to do to get it to the right place.”
“I know how precious they are, how they’re wonderful birds.”
