Seattle Rehabilitation Center : Program Gives Lift to Fallen Eagles

As birds of prey do, XC-366 stayed as high on her dead-limb perch as a chain-link fence would allow, peering over the plywood slab that gave her some privacy.

The gunshot wound that had brought the bald eagle from southeastern Alaska to Woodland Park Zoo’s eagle rehabilitation center couldn’t be detected, but it had left her wing weak and the bones slightly out of line.

She had been nursed back to health, her wing repaired and set, since arriving at the zoo. But XC-366’s soaring days were over.

Brought Back to Zoo

Released in January to join other eagles on the Skagit River, she was brought back a week later.

“It became obvious she wasn’t able to maintain altitude or gain altitude very well,” said bird handler Ernie Rose. “In order to survive, they have to be able to fly out of there (the Skagit River) and migrate, and she never would have been able to do that.

“We gave her her best shot, and it just didn’t work out.”

Since the rehabilitation program began in 1970, XC-366 is the first failed attempt at returning an eagle to the wild, said bird handler Eric Kowalczyk. There have been 38 successes.

Rose recaptured the eagle along the Skagit, where dozens of eagles spend the winter feeding on salmon, after she failed to fly away from him and ran into dense bushes.

Carry Transmitters

Two other eagles released Jan. 4 with small transmitters on their tail feathers have taken high perches above the river in northwestern Washington.

Of the four to 10 injured eagles received at the zoo each year, one-third have to be destroyed, one-third are destined to life in captivity, many in breeding programs around the country, and the final one-third are eventually released into the wild, zoo spokesman Hank Klein said.

The releases are usually made in Washington state, which, except for Alaska, has the largest bald eagle population in the United States. There are about 250 breeding pairs in the state, said Richard Taylor, statistician for the state Department of Game.

There are about 10,000 bald eagles in the lower 48 states and up to 15,000 in Alaska, Klein said.

Bald eagles, the national symbol, are sighted in every state, but not every state has breeding pairs.

Critical Drop in Numbers

“There is a very concerted effort toward helping them,” said Judy Tuttle of the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Mo. “The number of eagles had dropped so low that there was concern we were going to lose them.”

The eagles’ clash with man killed many of the birds, and it was use of the pesticide DDT, which made egg shells fatally weak, that threatened extinction of the creatures, once common in every state but Hawaii.

Since 1981, Missouri and the Dickerson Zoo have bred eagles in captivity, Tuttle said.

They use “hack boxes” to send chicks into the wild when they are about 3 months old. Thirty-three young have been “hacked out” in the last six years, and Tuttle said bird watchers are waiting to see if the eagles return as adults to nest in Missouri.

Characteristically, she said, eagles return to breed near where they were fledglings. It takes five to six years for eagles to mature and gain the distinctive black and white coloring.

Three Pairs in Missouri

Missouri, home to about 1,100 eagles in the winter months, only has three breeding pairs. Still, for most of the last 20 years, the state had no breeding pairs.

“Three is not very many,” Tuttle said. “It’s better than none.”

While Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle has been active in eagle rehabilitation, with a budget of $5,000 a year, it hasn’t had an eagle-breeding program. Klein expects to operate a breeding program, using injured birds, by 1990.

Eagles that are brought to the zoo for rehabilitation are screened off from humans to encourage them to retain their natural fear of man, Klein said. Before they are released, they are fed salmon, but there is no special effort to teach them.

“They are wild to start with, we just have to jog their memory,” he said. “After they’re released, they’ll see another bird swoop down and catch a fish and say, ‘Ah, I remember now.’ ”