Eaglet recovering, moved outdoors

No longer contagious, the eaglet that underwent surgery last weekend has been moved outside – albeit to an enclosed space.
According to Dr. Dave McRuer, director of veterinary medicine at the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, the eaglet continues to recover from Saturday’s surgery, with no recurrence of post-surgery hemorrhaging in the last few days.
The 7.5 pound eagle is keeping down solid food – eating cut-up mice – with Wildlife Center staff hand-feeding it smaller portions four times a day.
McRuer said the eaglet is showing signs of stress when handled, so doctors are retesting it for an aspirgillous fungal infection.
“With these changes, and given that we’ve determined that the eagle is no longer contagious, we have moved the bird outside,” McRuer wrote on the Wildlife Center’s Web site.
Doctors plan to apply a new prosthetic barrier in the next week.
On Monday, the methacrylate brace attached to the eaglet’s lower jaw loosened enough for doctors to remove it temporarily until it regains strength and the pox lesion area heals more.
Veterinarians at the Wildlife Center will remold and reattach the brace, which isn’t expected to be a lengthy or difficult procedure, Wildlife Center officials say.
Another juvenile bald eagle was released Wednesday at the Westover Plantation on the James River. The bird came to the Wildlife Center from York County suffering from what an official at the Wildlife Center was a likely case of organophosphate poisoning.