Bionic Beak for Bald Eagle

[goalienan]

Shown on April 23, 2008, at a raptor recovery center in St. Maries, Idaho, Beauty the bald eagle will undergo surgery in June to replace the upper beak she lost to a bullet two years ago.

Beauty's current stump is useless for hunting food, so a biologist has been hand-feeding the bird with forceps.

Jane Fink Cantwell, who operates Cantwell's Birds of Prey, Northwest, has spent the past two years assembling a a team to design and build the nylon-composite-beak.

They plan to glue it to Beauty next month. With the beak, the 7-year-old bald eagle could live to be 50, although not in the wild-the fake beak won't be strong enough to allow Beauty to cut and tear flesh.

The 15-pound (7-kilogram) eagle was found in 2005, scrounging for food and slowly starving at a landfill in Alaska.

Erik Stauber of the nearby Washington State University veterinary hospital does not have a lot of faith, the artificial beak will work.

http://news.national geographic.com

[Grandpa Greenman]

Your link didn't work, here is the right one. I heard about an Eagle go through something like this on a TV show were they repaired its beak and they tried to release it but the fix fell off. They did another repair but I don't think they tried releasing it again.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...agle-photo.html

[goalienan]

Your link didn't work, here is the right one. I heard about an Eagle go through something like this on a TV show were they repaired its beak and they tried to release it but the fix fell off. They did another repair but I don't think they tried releasing it again.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...agle-photo.html

Thanks for putting the link up Darkwind.. I wonder why they tried to release the eagle, when they mentioned in this article that it would be harmful to do so...What gave me a jolt, was when I read they glued the bionic piece onto the beak. Now I'm wondering if this eagle that is going to get the surgery, rejects it, and having to continue to be spoon fed, would still live to be 50......

[Grandpa Greenman]

Thanks for putting the link up Darkwind.. I wonder why they tried to release the eagle, when they mentioned in this article that it would be harmful to do so...What gave me a jolt, was when I read they glued the bionic piece onto the beak. Now I'm wondering if this eagle that is going to get the surgery, rejects it, and having to continue to be spoon fed, would still live to be 50......

It was a different Eagle. That Eagle had the tip of his upper beak left but the part of it was missing. I think I saw it on Animal Planet but I don't remember the name of the show. I know they had a lot of trouble getting it right.