Katie Ethan of the Raptor Education Group Inc. in Antigo worked with a rescued eagle from Watertown.
ANTIGO—“She is still with us,” are the first words Marge Gibson said when asked about the fate of a bald eagle rescued in Watertown a couple of month ago.
“She does have vision problems and will not be released,” the director of the Raptor Education Group Inc. of Antigo said.
“The good news is she will be a foster parent. We have a lot of orphans here in fact, we have seven right now.”
The 4-year-old female bald eagle was rescued in Watertown in early May.
Neighbors in the Riverlawn Avenue neighborhood noticed the injured bird along the Rock River for several days. The bird was observed acting strangely in the neighborhood the night of May 4.
A resident of the area contacted his mother, a bird photographer, who contacted the raptor group after observing the bird.
“It is important for people to know they did a good thing,” Gibson said of those who contacted the center.
Gibson contacted Lynda Hamilton Rafel of Hartland and John Kraak of Madison to assist in capturing the bird and transporting it to the center in Antigo. Several area residents watched as the bird was rescued and taken away.
After examining the eagle at the center, Gibson said the bird was blind in both eyes.
“We are not sure how she got injured, bit it looks like a puncture wound in the right eye,” the director said.
The eagle also had a “sympathetic response” to the loss of vision, causing the other eye to shut down although it was not injured, she added.
“She will have a very useful life (at the center) and she is happy
“She will have babies to take care of and have a full life here. She doesn’t need full vision for that,” Gibson said.
As a foster parent, the eagle feeds orphaned younger birds and takes care of them, Gibson said. “We drop food through a slot and the foster parent teaches the young to be vocal and everything they need to know. All we can do is supply the food.”
The center has fosters for owls and hawks, and recently released killdeer with its foster parent. The 2-day-old killdeer came to the center with a laceration on its leg. The bird had lost a lot of blood and Gibson said she was not sure if it would recover.
A foster killdeer was found that had a broken leg. “We put her in with the baby and she immediately put her wing down like an umbrella and she closed her wings over him,” Gibson said.
Watching the two birds fly away together earlier this week was neat, Gibson said.
