Bald Eagle “Beauty” Finds a New Beak
posted in Animal Species |
“Beauty,” the bald eagle finds a new beak after 3 years when a poacher shot her upper beak down. Around the middle of May 2008, a team of volunteers attached a beak to the 15 pound eagle thereby not just enhancing her appearance but also enabling her to grasp food for herself.
Nate Calvin, an engineer who has spent around 200 hours designing the beak for the bird says in a joke “She’s got a grill.” Nate says that the grill got slightly exposed when the outer synthetic covering peeled off. However, the new beak is a temporary attachment. It is presumed that a final beak will be made tougher and attached later.
However, volunteers and her saviors have no intention of throwing the bird back into the wild for the simple reason that the eagle has lived so long between humans that she would find it hard to tear her prey in the wild.
Jane Fink Cantwell claims that the temporary and/or artificial beak is certainly a big endeavor in giving the eagle a new means for survival. Jane explains that the eagle has the capacity to live for decades and with a broken beak, the bird couldn’t depend on humans to feed her food all the time. It was also observed that the bald eagle couldn’t even drink water or groom her feathers.
Anchorage, a bird recovery center, was where Beauty was taken and fed by humans. They waited in vain for a new beak to grow but it didn’t. Then Jane agreed to take her to her own Birds of Prey Northwest Ranch. At the ranch, she fed the bald eagle with strips of salmon with the help of tongs.
Finally, at an engagement in Boise, Jane met Calvin who offered to design an artificial beak for Beauty.
Beauty’s saviors are of the opinion that the nylon-laid beak will help the bird to drink water and grasp foods for her survival. Though there are numerous critics who feel that it isn’t that important to give attention to one bird that no more falls into the endangered species list, Jane is of the opinion that the bird can breed and be a foster mother to many orphaned eagles.
Jane Cantwell also sought an opportunity to give lectures around the country thereby encouraging people to not target such raptors.
It was a difficult task for the volunteers to fit the new beak onto the bird because she was a nervous wild animal as Jane claimed. Beauty was strapped and was consciously awake when the artificial beak was put on and removed from time to time to make proper adjustments. The Boeing Co., a synthetic skin maker in California has accepted to make a permanent and stronger beak for the bald eagle. After the surgery, Jane comforted the bald eagle and rejoiced with the words “The eagle has landed, and she has a beak.”