Eaglet undergoes beak surgery at Wildlife Center

A baby bald eagle is recuperating after a two-hour surgery Saturday morning to remove remnants of a golf ball-sized growth and fix its criss-crossed beak.
The 7.5-pound eagle, hatched in late April at Norfolk Botanical Garden, was brought to the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro on May 19 for treatment of a mass on the left side of its beak that had been caused by a severe case of avian pox.
The young raptor’s plight has drawn the attention of more than 150,000 people who followed its development on the Internet via an “Eagle Cam” that was set up near its parents’ treetop nest.
“We’ve never had a bird come in with his own fan club before,” said Edward E. Clark Jr., president and co-founder of the nonprofit wild animal hospital. “Especially not one with 150,000 members.”
No fewer than three online message boards are devoted to the plucky eaglet’s travails. While it is designated only as Patient No. 08-887 at the wildlife center, it has been named “Poink,” “Buddy” and “Easter” by various factions of its worldwide fans.
It is not yet known if the eagle is male or female, though veterinarians at the wildlife center said they were “willing to bet” that it is a female based on its developing characteristics. It is mostly black, with a smattering a white feathers. Bald eagles do not acquire their signature white heads until they are four or five years old.
The eaglet was hatched from the fifth egg produced by a pair of bald eagles that built their nest in Norfolk over the winter. The couple’s first two eggs were abandoned after another female intruded on the nest. The next two were laid in mid-March, but something disturbed the parents one night and the mother stepped on the eggs. She then devoured them the next day.
The fifth egg was laid at 12:20 p.m. March 22 and subsequently hatched April 27.
A few days after it hatched, however, the baby eagle apparently was bitten by a mosquito and infected with avian pox. The growth began to form on the side of its beak.
“Everyone was rooting for the parents to have a successful baby,” said Randy D. Huwa, the wildlife center’s executive vice president. “But then there was an evil twist to the story when the eaglet got sick.”
When the tiny eagle was admitted to the center, it was unable to stand on its own, it had stopped eating, and the gnarly red lump on its beak was growing rapidly.
The staff at the wildlife center treated the youngster with an aggressive — and expensive — cocktail of antibiotics, antifungal drugs, pain medication and interferons. “We actually treated him very similarly to how they treat people with HIV,” Clark said.
Over time, the treatment worked. The mass fell off its beak Wednesday.
Yet the eaglet still faced a major problem. The growth had caused a malformation of its developing beak. Its upper and lower beak were misaligned, so the bird could not eat on its own or preen itself. For the past two months, its handlers have had to insert sliced-up mice and other critters into the back of its mouth.
“We’ve been feeding him mice by hand three times a day,” said Tracy Marshall, a wildlife rehabilitator at the center. “He’s getting his big-boy feathers, so he needs lots of energy.”
To remove the eagle’s remaining pox lesion and straighten its beak, the wildlife center flew in R. Avery Bennett, professor of veterinary clinical medicine at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Bennett is considered one of the nation’s top experts when it comes to complicated avian surgical cases. He agreed to perform the procedure pro bono.
Saturday morning, the wildlife center’s surgical team sedated the eaglet and placed it inside the operating room at 10:20 a.m. Its body was covered with a large blue paper; only its beak poked through.
For the next two hours, Bennett sat on a stool and toiled away on the beak. A crowd gathered outside the operating room, watching his progress through an observation window.
“You’d think they were operating on the president or something,” Huwa quipped.
First, Bennett scraped away the remains of the pox lesion. Then he shaved down the beak and wired it into place to ensure that it aligns properly. Next, he mixed up a bright yellow acrylic epoxy and fixed it to the bird’s bottom beak. The acrylic “ramp” is intended to redirect the growth of the beak into its proper position.
Finally, Bennett placed a mesh screen over the hole in the beak left by the removal of the lesion. He patched up the opening with a bit more acrylic.
“Smells like a nail salon in there,” Marshall joked.
The four-stage procedure finished at around 12:30 p.m. Bennett, still wearing his giraffe-print scrubs and a tie-dyed frog-print cap, said the operation went better than he’d expected.
“I’m very happy with what we were able to do,” he said. “The beak is pointing straight. I feel good about it.”
As Bennett spoke, the eaglet — looking very disheveled — began to wake up.
“He’ll be feeling better within the next 24 hours,” Bennett said.
Bennett said he expects the eagle may need six months to a year to recover fully. The yellow attachment to its beak will probably come off within a month.
“He’s already had a glob that size on the side of its beak for the past two months anyhow,” Clark said.
As the eaglet recuperates, it will be gradually introduced to other bald eagles at the facility. Seven bald eagles are being treated there for various maladies, including electrical shock from a power line, poison and a poorly mended broken bone.
The eaglet has been kept in isolation since it arrived at the center because avian pox is highly contagious. Bennett said he expects it will be ready to become socialized in the near future.
It is not yet known what will happen to the eaglet once it is healthy, Clark said. Ideally, it could be released back into the wild, he said. However, it has been in captivity for most of its life and has learned to depend on humans.
During the eagle’s surgery, staff members of the wildlife center posted updates on the online message boards.
When told that the procedure was a success, one person from Ontario replied, “Woo Hoo! ... I guess I can exhale now.”
Another poster from Arkansas thanked the surgical team for its efforts.
“So grateful to the team of experts gathered to save this eaglet!” she wrote.
Brian McNeill is a staff writer for the daily Progress in Charlottesville.