Raptor Rehab

The golden eagle Aquila beat her great wings and vaulted toward the sky and freedom.

Three times she tried, each time failing because of the old shoulder injury. Suspended by a short tether just off the ground, Aquila lay defeated, wings spread as wide as a man is tall.

Each time, wildlife biologist Diana Miller calmly soothed the raptor and lifted Aquila back onto her gloved left arm.

Though unable to return to the wilds or soar again through rolling clouds, Aquila is a star player in presentations at the Raptor Center of Pueblo, where she was brought with a crushed shoulder 13 years ago and nursed back to health.

“If I was a genie or had one wish, it would be for Aquila to fly again,” Miller said later.

Miller’s career with raptors was unexpected. She had wanted to work with Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep.

“I came here 12 years ago to work as an interpreter and had to learn to handle raptors,” she said.

“I met Geronimo, a Swainson’s hawk. I looked into his eyes. It’s just magic. You see their soul. They keep you going when life really stinks. It was just being with them, getting to know them, wanting to do everything possible to get them able to fly again,” she recalled.

There are 19 resident raptors at the center. They are used in the public education programs about the birds of prey--eagles, hawks, falcons.

In the center’s 16 years of existence it has provided care for 1,886 birds.

“About half of the birds do go back to the wilds. The other half either died of the severity of their injuries or we have to put them to sleep,” said Miller, the center’s coordinator.

Aquila shares her living-room-sized cage with two other golden eagles. Next door are Hali and Bert, bald eagles, both now well into their 20s; both have had a wing amputated because of gunshot wounds.

Another neighbor is Skylar, a barn owl who was brought to the center as a chick before his eyes had opened. So now he thinks humans are barn owls. In fact, he chose Miller as his mate.

“He is very protective of me. If you went into the cage with me he would try to drive you off,” she said.

Miller also said barn owls played a role in ghost stories of haunted houses.

“They let out a blood-curdling scream if you invade their territory, and they love abandoned houses and barns. Their underbody is white and when they fly at you it could look like a ghost. It’s very scary unless you know what you’re looking at,” she said.

The raptor center is located in the Greenway & Nature Center amid the bluffs west of Pueblo near the confluence of the Arkansas and Fountain rivers and Pueblo Reservoir. The area provides great habitat for all kinds of birds.

The Raptor Center is located in the old pig barn at the former state prison honor farm. The old barn has been cleaned up and now offers displays of birds in residence as well as programs and educational exhibits.

Miller and raptor biologist Peggy Coontz are the paid staff at the center, augmented by a volunteer staff of 15-20 people “who really make the difference,” Miller said.

Most raptors injure themselves on power lines in their high-speed dives on rabbits, mice and prairie dogs. Others are hit by cars and trucks as they dine on roadside kill.

At the center’s intensive care unit, Miller and Coontz establish what is wrong with the patient and provide initial trauma care because the birds are usually in shock.

After being stabilized, the bird goes to the vets. Follow-up care averages three to four weeks. The patients are then moved into bigger enclosures away from the public area and await favorable weather for release.

“What’s most important is the education we get from caring for these raptors and passing that on to the public,” Miller said. “We learn on the job. Even the volunteer veterinarians do. They get dog and cat, horse and cow medicine at vet school, but not eagle and hawk training.”

One thing Miller has learned is that the raptor society is a woman’s world.

“In most raptors the girls are larger than the boys and the girls are in charge,” she said. “Hali eats first, Bert eats later. That’s how it is in the wilds. The girls are bigger and run the show.”