Veterinarian surgeons see a lot of weird and wonderful things in their jobs. All sorts of creatures come in and out of their doors with all sorts of strange ailments and complaints. But they’re usually domestic pets or animals from the local area. Rarely will a vet in an animal hospital be asked to deal with a creature as enormous and intimidating as this…
It’s a bald eagle! They stopped only to give him a name (they settled on ‘Freedom‘), before getting straight to work on diagnosing the issue and then treating him.
It didn’t take long to find out the issue – Freedom had a very badly broken wing. Left untreated in the wild, this could have been the end of him. Vets reckoned that Freedom had been hit by a vehicle of some kind.
He pitched up to the hospital in a box, so vets weren’t prepared for just how HUGE he was! Check out his mighty wingspan.
The team worked hard to keep Freedom calm while they investigated his injuries and treated him.
Look at the size of those talons!
They fixed him up in the end. Good work! This is what the animal hospital posted on social media after Freedom recovered:
“Once we’ve stabilized an animal/checked them over, we call the wildlife rehab center in our city and they come p/u the animals. They provide long-term treatments and will attempt to rehab them in the wild again. A bad wing break like this (open fracture) is difficult to repair and can sometimes result in a wing amputation which prevents release. A wild bird does not always do well in captivity so, quite often, humane euthanasia is a common route. For this particular fellow, he went to the centre and I’m personally crossing my fingers that they’ll be able to help him and give him another few years of life. Hopefully he stays away from vehicles in the future…”
