Best views, weather, etc. How to test them 👓 SC, Ala. sites look back Betty Ford honored
NATION NOW
Eagles

Baby eagle recovering from owl attack in Florida

Chad Gillis
The Fort Myers (Florida) News-Press
E8, the famous offspring of Harriet and M15 from the Southwest Florida Eagle Cam nest in North Fort Myers gets fed while recovering at the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Tuesday.  The eaglet is still in guarded condition after being knocked from it's nest by a Great Horned Owl on May,13.  It was found a week later by CROW employees and a volunteer. There is still weeks of recovery time left, but an eagle with this kind of injury has the potential of being released, according to CROW vets.

Missy Fox pries open a bald eaglet's beak, gently places a piece of fish in its mouth and raises the young bird's head to help it swallow.

Today's breakfast is grouper donated from a local restaurateur. Monday she fed it rats.

"We're still giving him soft food with no bones in it," Fox says, a veterinarian technician at the Center for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife, or CROW, on Sanibel. "But with some of the medicine, he sometimes doesn't want to eat."

The future hasn't been so bright in recent weeks for this young eagle.

He (the sex of the bird is unknown) was attacked in the middle of the night by a great horned owl on May 7 and was missing for a week.

Fox, wildlife rehabilitator Yvette Carrasco and a volunteer found and rescued E8 on Friday, May 13.

"We just randomly decided to go look for him," Fox says while squirting liquids into E8's beak. "We didn't think we'd find him, but we had the day off. So why not?"

Tuesday was the first time E8 has been available to the media.

E8, and his sibling E7,  are the latest birds born under the watch of Harriet, a famous female bald eagle who has raised multiple generations of eaglets in front of millions of online viewers. The nest is on lands that belong to the Pritchett family of North Fort Myers.

E8, the famous offspring of Harriet and M15 from the Southwest Florida Eagle Cam nest in North Fort Myers gets fed while recovering at the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Tuesday.  The eaglet is still in guarded condition after being knocked from it's nest by a Great Horned Owl on May,13.  It was found a week later by CROW employees and a volunteer. There is still weeks of recovery time left, but an eagle with this kind of injury has the potential of being released, according to CROW vets.

"He's getting a little bit better everyday, but it's still a guarded diagnosis," said Allison Daugherty, a veterinarian at CROW.

The Pritchetts unveiled the streaming video to the world in 2012, and nearly 53 million people have tuned in since. There are now three cameras pointed at the nest and adjacent areas, and viewers can switch between the cameras to get a better view of the famous birds.

Eagles typically mate for life, and Florida birds tend to start their reproductive cycle in October.

Ozzie and Harriet was the original couple, but M15 (a young adult male) killed Ozzie last year and usurped his nest. Ozzie himself was rehabilitated at the same facility from an earlier injury before being released and ultimately killed by M15.

Like all wildlife, E8 has had a rocky life so far. He was taken to CROW in February after his legs became entangled in fishing line.

Now he has a broken femur, but Daughtery said the CROW staff hopes he will continue to recover from the attack (great horned owls are known for trying to kill and eat animals that are two- to three-times larger than they are).

"He's been more active and is standing (in his cage), but he hasn't been eating on his own yet," Daugherty said.

The sibling, E7, is the bigger and stronger of the two birds, so there's a chance E8 would have been killed by E7 (it happens with eagles) or died from lack of food.

Now adult-sized, E7 is expected to fledge soon.

Daugherty said the timeline for a release is still uncertain because the broken femur must heal to the point that doctor's can remove the screws that now hold the bone together.

She's hopeful, though, that E8 will eventually roam Southwest Florida on his own power, perhaps even make a nest of his own one day.

"We're still not out of the woods," Daugherty said.

E8, the famous offspring of Harriet and M15 from the Southwest Florida Eagle Cam nest in North Fort Myers gets fed while recovering at the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Tuesday.  The eaglet is still in guarded condition after being knocked from it's nest by a Great Horned Owl on May,13.  It was found a week later by CROW employees and a volunteer. There is still weeks of recovery time left, but an eagle with this kind of injury has the potential of being released, according to CROW vets.
Featured Weekly Ad