Dr. Meg Gammage-Tucker pulled on a long leather falconer’s glove and pulled back the orange cloth printed with the word Freedom. The bald eagle batted its body against the sides of the crate. Gammage-Tucker slipped the latch. The door swung open. A white head. The bird reared upward inside the crate. The eagle lunged forward, head low, eyes fierce, dark brown body, broad wings bent high, then wings outstretched, he launched. His bright yellow talons almost grazed the ground, and the eagle drew his huge wings back tight into his body, then upward and outward again, beating the air in huge arcs, the eagle gained altitude, cleared the fence railing, veered left and over the grasses, over the Eastern red cedars and over the tops of the scrubby loblolly pines into the blue sky.
The Wildlife Center of Virginia released the five-year-old male bald eagle at Mutton Hunk Fen Natural Area Preserve on the Eastern Shore on October 31, two months after the raptor was found unable to fly near the Tyson Food Inc. chicken processing plant in Temperanceville.
“We don’t know what had happened to him. But we found oil on his wings and he was very emaciated,” Gammage-Tucker said.
Wildlife rehabilitator Gay Frazee captured the bird on August 27 and transferred him to the Wildlife Center in Waynesboro, Va., for treatment. His feathers were in very poor condition, but the veterinary team did not find any injuries, Gammage-Tucker said. The vet staff cleaned the eagle and provided fluids, food and supportive care while his feather condition improved. By mid-September, he was ready to fly and began daily exercises for muscle conditioning in an outdoor flight pen until he had built up sufficient stamina to survive in the wild.
Eagle #24-3548 is the fifth eagle the Wildlife Center has returned to the wild so far this year. About 50 have been brought in for treatment in 2024 and about one third usually can be rehabilitated and released, preferably in territory near to where they were found, said Connor Gillespie, director of outreach at the Wildlife Center. The other eagles are either humanely euthanized because they are too injured to recover or are still undergoing treatment, he said. The not-for-profit center also treats owls, hawks, songbirds, squirrels, opossum and even black bears – any wild creature native to the state.
While this eagle displayed no signs of specific ailments, bald eagles face a range of threats in the wild.
About 75 percent of the injured raptors brought to the center show some lead poisoning caused by ingesting fish or wildlife contaminated by lead used in fishing tackle and bullets, and of those, one quarter show very high levels.
Dr. Meg Gammage-Tucker
One study published in Wildlife Management estimates that lead accounts for 4-6 percent of premature deaths among bald eagles, reduces fertility in females and affects the resiliency of their eggs. She urged the roughly 40 people attending the eagle release to use copper alternatives when fishing or hunting.
Since eagles are opportunistic feeding not only on small mammals and fish but also on carrion, they are susceptible to parasitic infections. Additionally, the avian flu H5N1 virus is spreading amongst raptors in North America, causing increased death rates in some regional populations.
But here in the Chesapeake Bay region, which includes the Eastern Shore, bald eagles are plentiful. In the last count conducted by Virginia in 2020, there were roughly 3,000 breeding pairs, up from 1,000 in 2016, a remarkable comeback from roughly 60 breeding pairs when the agricultural chemical DDT, which weakened the egg shells causing eaglet death, was banned in 1972, according to The Chesapeake Bay Program, a regional partnership dedicated to restoration of the bay. In fact,this region has the highest density of bald eagles in the lower 48 states. The multitude of streams, rivers and inlets here provide plentiful freshwater and saltwater fish for eagles to eat while the forest hosts small mammals and provides excellent habit for protection and nesting.
However, increased development pressures are leading to loss of habit and runoff pollutes water sources, raising the threat level for the unofficial national bird of the United States.
Three populations of bald eagles live in the Chesapeake region — year-round residents, summer migratory eagles from theSoutheast and winter migratory eagles from the Northeast. The birds reach maturity around four or five years old, when their heads turn from mottled black and brown to white. Bald eagles will establish a territory and mate for life, building huge nests of sticks high in the branches of trees. The nests can stretch six feet across and sometimes weigh hundreds of pounds as theeagles add more sticks each year. They will line their nests with fresh green leaves, pine needles or even seaweed to cushion and insulate them before the female lays a clutch of two to three eggs in February in the Chesapeake area.
After 34-36 days, the chicks hatch with a coat of down. The male eagle does most of the hunting while the female stays near the nest protecting her brood and she does most of their feeding. The chicks begin to hop around and flap their wings at one month old, but they will stay near the nest for five to six months until they have learned to fly and hunt for themselves.
As Eagle #24-3548 was readied for his return to the wild, another bald eagle soared on a thermal overhead, circling high against the cloudless sky. Gammage-Tucker waited until the eagle had faded into the distance, before opening the crate.
Within seconds there was a whoosh of his huge wings, and he was gone. He was free once more, returned to the wild.
Learn more about bald eagles
Wildlife Center of Virginia eagle rehabilitation and tracking database, including video: https://wildlifecenter.org/critter-corner/eagle-tracking-archives.
Chesapeake Bay Program on eagles in the region and risks they face:
https://www.chesapeakebay.net/issues/whats-at-risk/bald-eagles
Articles on impact of lead poisoning on bald eagles:
https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jwmg.22177
https://wildlifecenter.org/lead-in-animals#sci-lead
News article on avian flu killing bald eagles https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/science/eagles-bird-flu.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Z04.ksmw.lNaKCe0gPgMy&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Featured photo at top by Ben Young.