Bald eaglet recovering from two tree falls
What happens next for the bird, including where it will stay while it recovers and where it will be released, is still being determined
A bald eaglet that fell Sunday from a redwood tree on a Milpitas school campus and injured its wing is on the mend, a veterinarian said Tuesday.
The young raptor’s hectic experience — which included a second fall Monday afternoon after state wildlife officials tried but failed to place it back into the tree where it had nested the first three months of its life — left it a little stressed and dehydrated,
however.
Where “Lucky” — that’s what local bird watchers have affectionately dubbed the eaglet — will stay while it recovers and where it will be released is still being determined.
Dr. Allison Daugherty, a veterinarian at the Lindsay Wildlife Rehabilitation Hospital in Walnut Creek, where Lucky was transported Monday night, said that the 8-pound eaglet had a small bruise on its left wing but no major injuries from the spills.
“Medically, from my standpoint, the eagle looks pretty healthy,” Daugherty said, adding that it was given rehydrating fluids Monday night and more fluids along with some mice to eat on Tuesday.
“So it’s more a matter of what can we do for the safety of the bird, to get the bird back to its parents, without having these issues where it’s on the ground,” she said.
Daugherty said wildlife biologists who work with eagles and state and federal officials will be involved in the decision about how to best care for the bird, which could include moving it to another facility with a larger enclosure to recover in while it learns to fly. This is the first time a bald eagle has been treated at the hospital in roughly 20 years, she added.
Daugherty said many factors will help determine whether the eaglet returns to the tree at Curtner Elementary School or is released elsewhere.
“What’s the environment like, and are there people who are going to bother the eagle whether they mean to or not,” she said. She also noted officials want to avoid rousing the bird’s sibling, which is still in the nest and being cared for by the parents.
The bird attracted dozens of observers and photographers after falling Sunday and Monday and officials set up temporary fencing to keep people away. Its parents, a pair of bald eagles, first nested in the tree in January 2017, raised a young eagle, and returned this past January to raise two more.
Wildlife experts had warned in the past that the constant presence of people visiting to observe and photograph the birds could bother the birds.
“It’s hard to anticipate, obviously, how a wild animal is going to respond,” she said. “But I think our hope is… if it is flying a little stronger, then we can put it back potentially with its family and maybe they can continue to work with it.”