This Juvenile Golden Eagle arrived to us suffering from Lead Poisoning, and was emaciated on arrival. As you can see in the first photo just before she was rescued, she was unable to use her legs and feet were clenched, which has been known to be a sign of lead poisoning. She was picked up by a good Samaritan, Alex, and sent ot us by our network of volunteers.

After intensive treatment, and multiple rounds of chelation therapy to get the lead out of her body, the Golden Eagles Lead levels went down. During her care she had a sudden irregular molt, as you can see in the first flight clip she has a large chunk of primaries missing leaving her less flighted. Once she was in stable condition we moved her to the flight pen, not long after another recovering Golden Eagle joined her as a cage mate. The new Golden happened to take the favorite perch one day and you can hear her protesting and communicating to her about the mix up!
She soon grew in the primary flight feathers she needed and regained flight endurance before returning to the wild. She was fitted with a tracker with the help of a local biologist, and was then released in Squamish where she was found. Within 12 days she made the trek up to the Yukon!

Please read more about Lead poisoning and how you can prevent this world wide issue here: https://www.owlrehab.org/dangers/lead...

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