A Bald Eagle Patient with an Environmental Message for Us

On Sunday, a bald eagle patient from the Mankato, MN area was brought into The Raptor Center’s clinic.  The bird had been spotted tangled by its left wing from some fishing line, floating in the Minnesota River.

While the eagle’s wing is recovering from the entanglement, its blood work and physical exam showed that it was recently exposed to (ingested) lead.  Because lead toxicity is commonly seen in bald eagles, every eagle admitted to TRC’s clinic has its blood tested for the presence of lead. While lead toxicity is often fatal to eagles, this bird’s other problems (fishing line entanglement) resulted in it getting treatment at an early stage of the disease. 

The bird, like all of our clinic patients, had an important environmental message to tell us.  On average, 25-30% of the bald eagles admitted suffer from lead toxicity. The primary cause of lead toxicity in bald eagles is ingestion of bullet fragments (hunting ammunition) in a meal such as a deer carcass or gut pile.  Lead poisoning has long been recognized to be a serious problem in bald eagles admitted to The Raptor Center. 

Dr. Julia Ponder, TRC's executive director, is featured in this Undark article, discussing the impacts of spent ammunition on wildlife. 

How You Can Help Great Horned Owls and Other Raptors

 As each New Year begins, great horned owls in particular become more active as they claim their territories, engage in courtship, and begin the nesting season.  Many of these birds are our close neighbors, living in residential areas.  They easily get entangled and trapped in holiday lights still decorating outdoor trees and shrubs, as did the patient featured here.  In an attempt to free themselves, these owls often sustain injuries and/or break the tools they need to fly:  their feathers.  One action we can all take to help prevent these situations and to continue to spread holiday cheer is to remove festive light decorations right after the holiday season is over. This one act can potentially save an owl’s life.

You can see the bruising on the underside of
the owl's wing.

Please spread the word with your family and friends. A little preventative action on your part can help our owl neighbors stay healthy especially during their reproductive season.

Here is a page of how to help an injured raptor.

As always, we could not do this work without your support.  Thank you for caring about raptors.

I Wonder . . . What does Peregrination Mean?

For those who follow our social media, Maxime the bald eagle usually helps with our "I Wonder" series. Today, we felt Artemis the peregrine should ask, "I Wonder . . . what does peregrination mean?"

MEANING:
noun: Traveling from place to place, also a course of travel, especially on foot.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin peregrinari (to travel abroad), from peregrinus (foreign), from peregre (abroad), from per- (through) + ager (field, country). Ultimately from the Indo-European root agro- (field), which is also the source of agriculture, acre, peregrine, pilgrim (a variant of peregrine), and agrestic. Earliest documented use: 1475.

Banded peregrine falcons through the Midwest Peregrine Society work (midwestperegrine.umn.edu) have been documented "peregrinning" to Guatemala, Costa Rica and other countries.

(Thank you to wordsmith.org).

TRC 1000th Patient of 2016 Released Back to the Wild

Dr. Dana Franzen-Klein with patient 16-1000

The 1000th raptor clinic patient of 2016 was released back to the wild. This hatch-year great horned owl was admitted over the Thanksgiving holiday, stuck in a chimney. It had been mildly dehydrated, with some abrasions and soot on both carpi (wrists).

Clinic staff cleaned off the soot on the feathers, so the bird could not ingest or inhale it. Broken feathers were replaced with ones that had been salvaged from previous patients, and it was test flown to make sure there were no other concerns.

Dr. Dana Franzen-Klein, who rescued the bird, released it near the site it was recovered.

Here is a video of the release

Thank you from The Raptor Center

Thank you for helping The Raptor Center max our match!  You raised nearly $100,000 yesterday PLUS our $53,000 match!  

We are so grateful to our community of supporters. Your gift this year is more important than ever as we are having a record breaking year in our clinic. 

Here is a thank you from our staff, volunteers, and raptors.