The raptor miracle cure

A bald eagle is in jeopardy from the time it rolls out of the egg.

If the young eagle survives and masters the art of flying, it has to master the art of finding food and staying away from the perils of man. The one big factor that helps a juvenile eagle to survive is communal life.

Most often, when you see a lone bald eagle perched in a tall tree - if you stop and scan the skyline - you'll see another bald eagle either perched, or soaring about a mile or so away. One or both are searching for food; one eagle is watching another eagle, who is watching another eagle etc., etc.

Winter is the season when they use this food-finding technique to the extreme, especially along highways that pass through deer wintering areas, such as Highway 31 from La Pine to Lakeview.

Winter is tough on mule deer: old age, disease, starvation and motor vehicles take their toll. Bald eagles take advantage of this available and dependable food supply and patrol the area most of the winter, one watching the other for a tasty treat.

Eagles perch in the tall trees along the roadway to watch for the eventual mule deer/motor-vehicle meetings - but power poles erected along the road are also suitable lookouts. The problem is no one has explained that wires on the poles contain up to 25,000 volts of electricity that can do considerable damage to any flesh-and-blood creature that comes into contact with all that energy.

Last week, that apparently happened to an adult bald eagle along Highway 31. This eagle somehow evaded the full brunt of the 14,400 volts, and ended up on the ground beneath the pole with only a badly injured left wing and leg.

Someone driving by spotted the injured eagle, and through a series of telephone calls, Gary Landers of Wild Wings Raptor Rehab in Sisters was notified. Gary drove to La Pine and retrieved the eagle, and found blood all over the eagle's wing and trauma to the left leg. Enter Broken Top Veterinary Clinic.

Dr. Little Liedblad runs the clinic and is probably one of the most talented veterinarians in this neck of the woods when it comes to solving the medical issues of raptors.

Dr. Liedblad and her crew looked at the damage to the eagle and suggested using a new tool in her vast line of equipment to handle medical emergencies: cold laser therapy.

Only 24 hours after the first treatment, Gary noticed healthy tissue, no sign of bleeding, no sign of feathers falling out. By the fourth laser treatment the eagle was flying around in the large holding cage, and when Gary tried to capture it for its next treatment with veterinary technician Kinta Umphress, it smacked him alongside the head with the inured wing.

"It's amazing," Gary said, holding the hooded eagle and pointing to the obvious healing of the injured part of the wing. "I've never seen an eagle with this much trauma recover so quickly, and there was no need to use drugs or wrapping with bandages."

How does cold laser therapy work? "Well, the quickest and simplest way I can explain it is that the cold laser light penetrates the injured tissue and says to the cells, 'Hey, you guys, wake up! You have a job to do getting this tissue healthy - and it does," Dr. Liedblad said.

If all keeps going as well as it has, Gary will be able to release the eagle back into the wild in a very short time.

"Other eagles with injuries of this type usually take months to heal," Gary said, shaking his head in disbelief. "This one may be OK in weeks."

The other part of this story is that Ron Cass and his crew at Mid-State Electric in La Pine are placing fiberglass bird-guards on wires and poles where the eagle was found. When Gary releases the eagle back into the wild, it will have a safer place to perch.