5 Star Story: Bald eagle rehab at the Memphis Zoo
In this week’s 5 Star Story, we reveal how bald eagles are finding their way to the zoo in hopes of one day taking flight back into the wild. The Memphis Zoo's animal hospital, the onsite animal hospital and in partnership with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, has been rehabilitating injured bald eagles for the past 30 years. The zoo's senior veterinarian, Felicia Knightly, has a client list of 3,500 animals and roughly 500 different species. The facility has also taken in over 50 other birds of prey. Not all of these birds have happy endings, with one having significant wing injuries and another having questionable hunting ability. However, releasing these magnificent birds requires careful planning and foresight.
Published : 4 months ago by Kym Clark in Science
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - We all know the Memphis Zoo has thousands of animals and is heavily involved with animal conservation. But what you may not know is that the zoo’s onsite animal hospital also rehabs one of this country’s greatest symbols.
In this week’s 5 Star Story, we reveal how bald eagles are finding their way to the zoo in hopes of one day taking flight back into the wild.
Dr. Felicia Knightly, senior veterinarian at the Memphis Zoo, has a long list of interesting clients -- 3,500 to be exact and roughly 500 different species.
“There is not an animal on grounds that we don’t see,” Knightly said. “We have tarantulas, we have reptiles, amphibians, birds.”
Even birds that do not live at the zoo--in particular, bald eagles. For the past 30 years, the Memphis Zoo has taken in injured bald eagles. Bald eagles have gone from the brink of being endangered to flourishing, although, still on the threatened list--news that, while positive, also has a downside.
”But, along those lines with more visibility and more interaction with the people and with society, in general, I think that we are seeing more animals that do need to receive some medical care,” Dr. Knightly explained.
Under U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services permits and in partnership with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), the Memphis Zoo has rehabbed over 50 bald eagles, as well as other birds of prey.
“They come from all over. I will say the majority come from the west side of obviously Tennessee, but everywhere from Nashville to here and all the counties in between,” Knightly described, and added, “So, we’re seeing a lot more come into our clinic because they come into contact with automobiles or with potentially humans that unfortunately shoot them.”
Bald eagles on display in the zoo’s Northwest Passage/Teton Trek exhibit, Nash, Sue and Freedom, are rehabbed birds deemed unreleasable.
“I will say that two of them have significant wing injuries. The third is just a little bit impaired. And so his ability to hunt was kind of questionable,” Knightly said.
She’s also quick to point out that not all of the stories about the eagles who come into the zoo’s clinic have happy endings.
“There are sometimes where there just isn’t enough room and if the bird is not rehabable and we cannot get it back to the point of being releasable and being able to hunt and fly on its own, because you certainly don’t want to send them back out to fail. I want to set them up to succeed back in the wild.”
Right now, the Memphis Zoo clinic has three birds currently undergoing rehab and evaluation. Dr. Knightly is confident at least one of the them will be released soon, while another is still questionable, and the third will be going to a home on the West Coast.
“And she is very amendable to people waiting on her. We want ti make sure they’re in good health, from the perspective of nutrition, from the perspective of being able to fly, being able to hunt. In a perfect world, they would all be releasable,” she said.
But even releasing these magnificent birds has to be done with careful planning and foresight.
”Usually they do come with a GPS coordinate of where we found them or where they were found, because you don’t want to release them back and impact potentially a population where they didn’t come from, right? You also don’t wanna put them somewhere that they’re not familiar with what resources for food, etc. that are there,” Knightly explained.
But when it’s time for a bald eagle release into the wild, it’s certainly a time of celebration for all involved in getting the big birds back into the sky.
“And there’s nothing better than watching a release when they’ve come to you and they’re broken and you’ve fixed them and you take them out there and they open that crate door and see this animal, this majestic bird, fly away. There’s nothing better. That’s your job. It makes it all worth it,” Dr. Knightly described with tears in her eyes.
Bald Eagle releases are usually handled by the Mid-South Raptor Center, since they have the flying cages needed to prepare the birds for flight once again. But Dr. Knightly hopes one day soon the Memphis Zoo will have its own flight cage so that the staffers can be involved in the entire process from treatment to release.
And just so you know, penalties for harming a bald eagle can result in a $250,000 fine and/or two years in federal prison.
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Topics: Wildlife, Bald Eagles