A bullet nearly split a bald eagle’s beak in half. A Missouri team hopes to repair it
A bald eagle arrived at an animal hospital July 11 with a beak wound so deep, the top portion of it nearly split in half, photos from a Missouri sanctuary show.
The World Bird Sanctuary believed the eagle was shot and worried that damage to its beak could be “beyond repair,” according to an Aug. 11 news release. In addition to the beak injuries, the eagle’s jaw had multiple fractures and its left wing was wounded, the sanctuary said.
In the eagle’s first month at the animal hospital in Valley Park, it underwent two surgeries to repair its beak.
“The first surgery involved placing cross pins on either side of the fracture, which were then secured with epoxy to create a stabilizing structure on the exterior of the beak to maintain proper alignment,” the group said in the news release.
A second surgery was performed to fill the large gap on the eagle’s beak with dental acrylic, the sanctuary said.
More work was needed on the beak, however, as some of the dental acrylic started to lift, according to an Aug. 21 Facebook post by the sanctuary. The eagle underwent a third surgery.
“We removed much of the dental acrylic to further clean and debride the wounds on the sides of the beak before reapplying the acrylic,” the sanctuary said in the post. “The tissue there looks as good as we could hope for and we are seeing signs of healthy granulation tissue starting to fill in these wounds!”
Animal surgeons are planning a fourth surgery to remove the protective acrylic over the growth bed and assess it.
“While we are hoping this 4th surgery will give us insight on the long-term viability of the bed, it may still prove inconclusive as beaks take so long to regrow when damaged,” the sanctuary said.
If the eagle’s growth bed is healthy, the bird will still need many more months, if not a year, of rehabilitation before it can be safely released into the wild.
Valley Park is about a 20-mile drive southwest from St. Louis.
This story was originally published August 28, 2024 at 3:30 PM with the headline "A bullet nearly split a bald eagle’s beak in half. A Missouri team hopes to repair it."
