This is a video of a baby bald eagle being treated for a gunshot wound. On December 15, he was flying during a rainstorm above the forests of Beaver, Washington -- 9 miles north of Twilight town Forks. As he extended his wings to flap, someone raised their .22-caliber rifle and shot him in the left wing. The eagle instantly toppled from the sky.
The shooter left the wounded, floundering eagle to slowly die in the rain. Born earlier this year, this small male bald eagle had only been flying for a few months before some sadistic buffoon did his best to ensure that he would never fly again.
This is the story of that eagle's rescue, his rehabilitation, and the search for his attacker. This is also the first chapter in this eagle's fight for survival and, hopefully, his fight to fly again.
Luckily for this young eagle, a local resident of Beaver happened upon him as he bled out on the ground and called us at The Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center. We are a combination wildlife rescue organization, rehab center, orphanage, and retirement home. We're a non-profit organization that for years has been devoted to rescuing, rehabilitating, and releasing injured, abandoned, or ill wildlife in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state -- an enormous, largely undeveloped area of over 3000 square miles. We've treated hundreds of bald eagles, and, unfortunately, this is not the first eagle victim of a gunshot wound we've handled.
By the time we were able to get the eagle with the help of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, it was already late in the day. Our Center's Director, the saintly Jaye Moore, nursed the wounded eagle through the night before taking him to the veterinary hospital that we partner with the next morning, which stabilized him and put him in intensive care.
The X-rays were not promising. The bullet (likely a .22-caliber round shot from a rifle) had fractured the eagle's ulna bone in his left wing. The surrounding soft tissue in the wing was shredded with countless bullet fragments. Due to the hours the eagle was left bleeding in the rain and cold, he was extremely weak.
When the veterinarians attempted to put him under to clean his wounds, the bald eagle quickly faded and ceased breathing. As Center staff looked on, the vets manually pumped air into the eagle's lungs and gradually brought the eagle back to life. When the vet said, "He's breathing!" everyone in the room felt themselves exhale. None of us had realized that we, too, were holding our breath.
In the days since, our little eagle has made great progress. He has begun to eat and perch regularly on his own. We've managed to have his wound treated, cleaned, and bandaged, and we're optimistic he may be able to bridge the fracture in his wing naturally, without surgery. Best of all, he's getting feisty and mouthy again, a great sign for a rehabilitating raptor. Pretty soon, we'll be bringing him home to the Center, where we will begin the long road of rehabilitating him.
Eventually, he will have a chance to live with our other bald eagles in our "Flight Pen", where we can observe if he has what it takes to fly and hunt in the wild again.
There, he'll join Forks, another male bald eagle shot in the same area of Washington a number of years ago. Forks has not been able to fly ever since, and the shooter is still free.
We at the Center are determined to ensure that this does not happen again. We want to catch the asshole poacher/sadist who decided to get his kicks from pointlessly and illegally wounding this baby bald eagle. Through our efforts, this eagle's story and our search for tips has been picked up by local newspapers, big city newspapers, national newspapers, and even national TV. If you have any tips or leads regarding the identity of the shooter who wounded this eagle on December 15, 2010 in Beaver, WA, e-mail me directly at Matthew (at) NWRaptorCenter.com
Even if we don't catch this specific criminal, we hope to publicize that shooting/hunting/poaching eagles is illegal and that there is such a thing as licensed wildlife rehabilitators who are willing to help -- for free -- any wild animals that you come across that have been wounded, injured, abused, or otherwise incapacitated.
The other reason I'm writing today is to let everyone know that our Center, which rehabilitates and releases dozens of wild animals every year and permanently cares for dozens more, needs help. Though no human is paid a cent by the Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center, the costs of caring for animals such as this eagle are staggering. The Center's founders, the Moore family, have personally spent astronomical amounts of their middle class income just to keep the Center open. If new resources are not discovered in the next few years, the Center will likely close, leaving wildlife across a 3000-square-mile area without a second chance.
Donations can be given to subsidize the care of this eagle and our other animals at our Facebook page or at our homepage. Without the Center, many animals will never have a chance to have good people repair the damage done to them by the bad.
Thank you for taking the time to read this story and learn about our little wounded eagle. You can follow this story hour-by-hour by liking our Facebook page.
Thank you,
Matthew Randazzo
Matthew (at) NWRaptorCenter.com
Public Relations Director
Northwest Raptor & Wildlife Center.