Logan is a three-and-a-half-year-old Bald Eagle who has been with us for a year and a half. Young eagles take four years to grow in the white head and tail feathers of an adult. He was found grounded in Southwest Harbor during a time when Avian Influenza was hitting Maine. We had four other eagles at the time, all with symptoms of Avian Influenza. He was found with his head down, trembling all over, very weak, and unable to move. At that time, we knew little about Avian Influenza except that it was lethal, and all susceptible species should be quarantined from each other. The caregivers should wear PPE and masks. There was no test for it that year for rehabilitators.
We had never had so many eagle patients together at one time and it was scary because we couldn’t tell for sure what was wrong with them. They could have had AI, or they could all have neurologic damage from concussions. They all lived by themselves and were an enormous amount of work.
One eagle died right away. One was so ill that we put it down. Then two more died. Logan struggled on. We moved him from his carrier to a small outdoor enclosure where he had trouble moving around but slowly improved. He could finally perch on a low log and feed himself. By this time, he was out of the danger period for AI, and we took him for radiographs. His head radiograph looked clean to us, but I sent the pictures to the retired head vet of Tufts wildlife clinic, Mark Pokras, and he saw something. Very faint but there, the image of a talon entering behind Logan’s ear next to his skull, a wound from a territorial fight that had caused all his neurological symptoms.
He was well enough by now to move in with our resident eagle “Luke” and continued to improve, flying around the cage. We were very excited, thinking that he was so close to full recovery. However, in the spring all progress stopped. He sometimes landed on perches, but sometimes not. Sometimes he landed on Luke. He turned his head from side to side, but never up and down. Like a human driver looking in the rear-view mirror, eagles need to always be looking up for danger, and down for food. All summer his health remained at a stalemate. Then in the fall we lost our beautiful Luke at 13 years old, and a decision had to be made about Logan. He was not going to be releasable, so we decided to apply for a permit to keep him. He is a beautiful boy of great curiosity and character. We hope that sometime we will be able to give him a companion. Meanwhile he seems to get along with everyone, even fostering an enormous goofy female fledging who went on to be released this early winter.
