This is the rescued Golden Eagle Juvie found by its nest last year after the wild fire burned through its nest on the cliff. The rescuer was only going back to look for its band, but to his surprise, found the Juvie Eagle still alive, starving with 3rd degree burns.
This is copied from the Wildlife Rehab Center of Northern Utah ....
PHOENIX: Anniversary Update of His Story of Tragedy and Triumph PHOENIX: Anniversary Update of His Story of Tragedy and Triumph
This story began May 2012 when Kent Keller, a certified eagle bander, was scouting a golden eagle nest near Eagle Mountain Utah for banding opportunities. Climbing down from the ridge above, he found a healthy single eaglet too small to band. Returning again on June 1st, Kent banded the growing eaglet and took what he expected to be his last photos as he left the site.
Three weeks later on June 21st two men shooting explosive targets started a small blaze that erupted into a wildfire burning more than 5,000 acres--the “Dump Fire.” Tragically, the young eaglet’s home was in the path of this fiery monster and was completely consumed … Kent said, “not a stick remained.”
Six days after the fire, Kent returned to the nest site to retrieve the band from the ashes. As he approached the site he noticed from behind a burnt juniper, 25 feet below the nest area, two feet … the eaglet had somehow miraculously survived!
Kent worked for the local Fish and Game and unlike you or I, he had to request permission through the USFWS to remove the eagle—permission that took another six days—12 days of suffering and survival in the wild for this young burned eaglet. Finally, on July 4th 2012, Kent was able to drive the eaglet to Ogden Utah and into the waiting hands of the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah (WRCNU). Findings of the initial examination: all of his outer body, tail and wing feathers had been burned and melted—not one normal/complete feather remained. He had 3rd degree burns covering his feet and mouth area; he was badly dehydrated and vastly underweight; the diagnosis was not good, but to this point, he had survived all the odds … any other being would have died.
Named “Phoenix” for the mythological bird consumed by fire and reborn from the ashes, this unflighted eaglet literally rose from the ashes when the fire destroyed his home. Kent had seen eagle nests burned by fire, but never with an eaglet still in it as typically the young have fledged from the nest before the start of the fire season—with only two weeks left to fledge, Phoenix was not so lucky.
Having survived the fire, Phoenix now had to endure the pain of healing in the hands of what was in his mind “the very beast that caused all the pain”—humans. He had no way of knowing these hands were here to help and he showed fierce animosity towards his captors each time he was gathered up for his hydrotherapy sessions for his burns, medicated and fed which was several times every day.
Phoenix healed fast: to WRCNU the days felt like weeks and weeks like months, but it was amazing just how fast the body of this youngster wanted to heal. With every downturn in his status came positive results and hope. After his flesh healed, his beak and talons showed signs of major damage, but by mid November our sights were no longer on “would he survive” but “where would his life go from here?” Would Phoenix be releasable? Would his feet and beak heal completely? Would all his feathers moult and grow naturally after exposure to the intense heat?
As sad as his story is, Phoenix has given us a great opportunity to reach people’s hearts and relay the important message WRCNU strives to make each and every day—accountability for human impact on nature and positive change to reduce this impact. As the 2013 fire season begins we wonder of all the pain and suffering of the nonhuman type going on in the areas ablaze and reported as, “Good news” or “of little concern” because no human habitation is in the impact area. Hundreds of thousands of acres go up every year due to human impact that are “of little concern” because people don’t realize the tragedy and loss unless it impacts themselves or other humans … all the wildlife burning, dying, and suffering for days and weeks during and after such fires.
If not for a small metal band and a birder/bander who was (is) dedicated to his part in eagle research we would not know of the story of Phoenix and his story would have turned out quite different—just another of the tens or hundreds of thousands of silent deaths that occur each year. If not for a small metal band, many of us would never think twice about the unseen pain, unheard cries and unknown death of the fire season when human property is not at risk of loss—we owe this lesson to Kent and to Phoenix and we ask that people everywhere share this lesson and learn.
We’ve guarded and protected Phoenix the best we can, but being a rambunctious youngster who wants to flap his burnt wings all we could do was keep him in a smaller than normal enclosure to prevent him from damaging new feathers as he started his moult this spring (2013). As the weather warmed considerably we felt it best to allow him to complete his 2013 moult outdoors. The change and more open space than he’s seen in the last year was scary for Phoenix and it took him several weeks to truly adjust, but he’s doing well now.
We hope his moult will be thorough enough that he will regain the insulating properties necessary to allow him to remain outside this winter, but only time will tell. Eagles to not moult every feather every year and in fact can take up to three years to completely replace all their body covert feathers. Even the primary flight feathers of the wings are not always completely replaced every year—but as all the Golden Eagles in our care at this time are moulting heavy we hope that Phoenix’s moult continues so that he may be allowed to actually fly in his mews this fall.
Phoenix made a visit to the vet in June to look at his beak and talons. The lower beak is misshapen and we fear that it may be a permanent disfigurement. Right now we are just assessing his ability to open up prey and eat properly as we trim it slowly to bring it back into shape and he seems to be fairing well and eating well. He won’t eat while his feeder watches, only mantles over it to conceal and protect it from the intruder. So we are not sure how he is eating, only that the next day it is gone except for a nicely cleaned rat pelt or the wings of the quail he was fed. His talons are thicker than we would like, but we’ve decided to allow the substrate of his new mews to slowly hone them—if that doesn’t work, we’ll shape them manually, but we don’t se any problems with their eventual condition.
He is more calm around his feeders than we would like, but due to all the handling during his earlier days it can be expected—we do not allow him to see or interact with anyone other than his feeder and the vet; we will deal with the task of “removing his habituation” once we’ve determined his releaseability status much later from now. Best case, Phoenix will start flying this fall, he’s an amazing long jumper :) and flaps his ragged wings like mad, but we prefer he stay calm so as not to damage his new feathers as they come in.
Kent has gone back into the area where Phoenix was hatched and said that his parents had started to add material to the cliff ledge this spring but left. There is likely a lack of prey in the area due to a lack of forage for the ground squirrels, rabbits, snakes, etc. that we know his parents were feeding him. It could be a couple more years as the grasses and shrubs return before we will see any real activity on the cliff ledge, but it’s good to know his parents are still working together and likely working another nest area in an unscathed part of the land.
Enjoy the photos of Phoenix and the information posted with each; we will not be disturbing Phoenix unless there is a change in status, i.e. full or nearly complete moult, flying, moving to another larger mews, beak or talon adjustments/assessments, etc. As always, you can count on WRCNU to keep you posted on Phoenix and his journey. We don’t see any major decisions on his releasable status until almost a year from now at the earliest, but we continue to keep that as our only focus. We know that some of you may be “neat freaks” LOL! So, you’ll notice Phoenix’s mews walls are nicely “whitewashed” thanks to the last Osprey we had in it—it doesn’t come off; it’s been hosed down; it’s as clean as it gets and Phoenix doesn’t seem to mind … just in case you were wondering … :-)
Please keep us in mind for donations (www.wrcnu.org) to keep us moving forward in our organizational journey to help the injured and suffering and return them back to the wilds. Our Amazon “WRCNU Wish List” (http://goo.gl/6FiHJ) has been very popular, we have items below $5 on up to $900, but in all cases, you CLICK and Amazon or a related site packages and mails for you—don’t forget to add your name and address to the “gift announcement” so we can send you your end-of-year tax receipt!
For periodic updates on Phoenix and many of his friends including lots of photos, please join our following on Facebook by liking the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah.
Our next big news announcement should be on the “Willard Bay Six”, the beaver heroes from the March 2013 Chevron fuel spill—STAY TUNED!
PHOENIX FANS--Here's Your Carrot! Come EAT! Updated 6 hours ago · Taken at Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah Phoenix fans here are your PHOTOS!!!
These photos were taken on 10/16/2013 when we took Phoenix out to cope his beak. It is still miss-shaped from all the heat damage he suffered, but we believe we can bring it back to where it needs to be—this is a VERY slow process. If we take it down too fast and damage the growth plate or hit blood we could do more damage, so we cope a little and wait and then cope some more. As you can see the dark coloration is starting to return and that is good as this is much harder material than the lighter (almost white) keratin that he started with back in August 2012.
Due to the gap left after coping each time (between the end of his lower mandible and the inside of the upper beak) he has some difficulty eating (can’t grasp, rip and tear his food), so we try to minimize this gap so he can continue eating somewhat normally while still taking the beak down enough to make some progress.
The “beak photos” are taken after the cope and you can see how we had to take the lower mandible back (it was turning down; a slow process to return) and his upper beak still needs to come in more (be shortened on the outer curve), but as stated previously we can’t hit blood or the growth plate, so are taking this very slow. We have made a lot of progress and feel much better that we can bring his beak back to “Golden Eagle Standards”. :-)
His talons are perfect—very sharp; feet look amazing with scarring only noticeable on close inspection. He has full extension of his feet, toes, talons and can close down hard on anything he wishes, so he has no handicap in this area—ask Buz, he knows. ;-o
He’s gone through a pretty good moult, but not yet a complete moult. Interesting is that his wings did not seem to moult symmetrically and his most severely burned side (right) actually moulted better as of these photos. We are still concerned about the top of both wings (especially the right) as the feathers seem to be slow to come in—we hope he didn’t have follicle damage in this area—if these feathers don’t come in sufficiently he will have exposure issues as well as flight issues.
Phoenix is still moulting and has more flight feathers now than shown in these photos of two weeks ago. His moult has slowed a lot and at this late date we are now not expecting him to moult all the burned feathers this year—but we won’t say “no” yet; he’s made amazing progress.
We plan on moving him to a larger Mews in the next month or two for the winter and if all goes well with all our WRCNU projects, we hope to have a new mews built over the winter—2012/13 winter weather and the beavers canceled that plan last year. This Mews is planned to be dedicated to Phoenix during the remainder of his stay at WRCNU.
Savor and enjoy as it will likely be a while before we have any updates on Phoenix, but you can trust we will let you know, when we have something new to tell/show.
PLEASE SHARE far and wide, so that those interested, but sadly not keeping tabs on our page anymore, get the news!
Thank you all for your patience and support and please keep us in mind as we head into the “Season of Giving” :)
THANKS SC! I WAS WONDERING ABOUT THIS LITTLE ONE, WHO CERTAINLY HAS CONQUERED SO MANY PROBLEMS AND MORE TO GO, BUT HE SEEMS TO BE THRIVING UNDER THE EXPERT CARE OF THE REHABBERS.
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Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:33 pm (Last edited: Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:34 pm)
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