A bald eagle that was shot months ago and nursed back to health at a wildlife hospital in rural Virginia will be released at a Fairfax County park today, despite having three shotgun pellets still lodged in its body.
The animal was found by hunters near Richmond and eventually brought to the Wildlife Center in Waynesboro in late December, said Ed Clark, the center’s president. They plan to release the bird, which has not been named, as part of the Eagle Festival at Mason Neck State Park.
While the center treated 36 bald eagles last year, finding one suffering from a gunshot wound has become increasingly rare.
“When we first started 25 years ago, we almost never got any kind of bird of prey that didn’t have some type of shot in its body somewhere,” he said. “I’ve seen eagles with three different kinds of shot in them. That was the norm back then, any hawk was a chicken hawk, and any big bird was something you shot at.”
But public attitudes have shifted dramatically, he said, evidenced by the fact that the man who brought the bird in was a hunter.
The shot had fractured the bird’s right coracoid bone, an integral part of the shoulder, which required both bandages and a regimen of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs. A month ago, the eagle was placed in a large flight pen, and a week ago officials at the center determined it was ready to return to the wild. While they didn’t remove the shot, the center’s veterinary staff decided the pellets posed no danger to the eagle’s health.
Where the bird will end up is uncertain, Clark said. It could fly back down-state within a day, he said, or it could stay in the area.
“We don’t know whether this bird had a territory, we don’t know whether she had a mate, we don’t know whether she was just passing through,” he said.
At a glance
Name: Bald eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus
National emblem: Declared in 1782 by the Second Continental Congress
Native: To North America
Habitat: Has a presence in every U.S. state except Hawaii. The bald eagle lives near large bodies of open water, where there are plenty of fish to eat and tall trees for nesting and roosting.
Protected status: Was listed as “endangered” from 1967 to 1995, when it was upgraded to “threatened.” The bald eagle was delisted from “threatened” status in 2007.
