{"id":45,"date":"2012-04-19T17:55:44","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T17:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/?p=45"},"modified":"2013-06-19T21:02:43","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T21:02:43","slug":"eagle-with-broken-wing-challenges-surgeons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/2012\/04\/19\/eagle-with-broken-wing-challenges-surgeons\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagle With Broken Wing Challenges Surgeon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"EagleRecovery\"<\/a>The OSU Small Animal Hospital treats cats and dogs only. They don\u2019t treat birds. That is, unless a national symbol of freedom shows up.<\/p>\n

In March, the Chintimini Wildlife Rehabilitation Center (CWC) north of Corvallis, received a badly injured bald eagle whose wing had suffered multiple fractures. Jeff Picton, CWC director, contacted OSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital and orthopedic surgeon Jennifer Warnock agreed to do the delicate surgery.<\/p>\n

Bird bones are radically different than dog and cat bones. \u201cThe avian humerus is pneumatic, meaning it is connected with the respiratory system making the bird lighter for flight and keeping them cool,\u201d says Warnock. Her experience at UC Davis\u2019 Avian Exotics Service and other wildlife medical services enabled her to tackle the tricky case. \u201cBird bone is particularly thin and brittle, making implant placement a delicate affair: pins placed in bird bone can easily strip out or further fracture the bone,\u201d says Warnock.\u00a0 Another concern in repairing the broken wing was putting it back together without shortening it so much that the eagle couldn\u2019t fly well. They used a minimally invasive procedure to place an external metal fixator with nine pins through tiny incisions into the good bone.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The eagle came through the two-hour surgery well. In fact, immediately upon waking up from anesthesia, he bit Picton and drew blood. \u201cWe were all saying, \u201cOh great, he\u2019s fast! That is a good sign,\u201d laughs Claire Peterson, veterinary student and regular volunteer at CWC. \u201cThe bald eagle surgery was so cool to observe. I have not got to see an orthopedic surgery where they put in so many pins and construct the whole external fixture.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jury is still out on whether the bald eagle will recover well enough to be released. According to Peterson, he has a better chance of returning to the wild than other raptors. \u201cIf it were a falcon, it would be unlikely,\u201d says Peterson. \u201cThey are the athletes of the bird world. They are hunting ducks and songbirds so they need to be able to fly really well. Eagles can scavenge and they can catch fish. He doesn\u2019t need to be an athlete; he just needs to be able to get along. We\u2019re hoping that it\u2019s enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

August 2012 Update: Recent news from the CWC is good. As part of her rehabilitation, volunteers have been chasing the eagle around her 80\u2032 pen trying to force her to fly as much as possible. She has been steadily improving and now is flying so well, center director Jeff Picton is sending her to to another wildlife center with a bigger flight cage where she can get really good workouts. \u201cShe really needs something huge to practice in,\u201d says Warnock. The ultimate goal of all this activity is to strengthen her wing enough to return her to the wild.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The OSU Small Animal Hospital treats cats and dogs only. They don\u2019t treat birds. That is, unless a national symbol of freedom shows up. In March, the Chintimini Wildlife Rehabilitation Center (CWC) north of Corvallis, received a badly injured bald eagle whose wing had suffered multiple fractures. Jeff Picton, CWC director, contacted OSU Veterinary Teaching… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1802,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[172826],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-osu-veterinary-teaching-hospital"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3FFxI-J","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1802"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/61"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/animalconnection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}