In April, surgeon Jennifer Warnock at the OSU Veterinary Teaching Hospital rebuilt the wing of a bald eagle brought into the hospital by the Chintimini Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Corvallis. The wing was badly fractured and required delicate surgery involving pins and an external fixator. The eagle came through the surgery well but no one could predict how much it would impact her ability to fly.
Recent news from the wildlife center is good. As part of her rehabilitation, volunteers have been chasing the eagle around her 80′ 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 considering sending her to to another wildlife center with a bigger flight cage where she can get really good workouts. “She really needs something huge to practice in,” says Warnock. The ultimate goal of all this activity is to strengthen her wing enough to return her to the wild.
