Rescued Bald Eagle Released at Joemma Beach State Park

The scene at Joemma Beach State Park that misty morning in May unfolded much faster than Jennifer Van Orman expected.

A wildlife rehabilitator at West Sound Wildlife Shelter on Bainbridge Island, Van Orman was there to release a juvenile bald eagle that had been under her care at the shelter for a little over two months. The Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife suggested the location, and Park Ranger Andrea Smith, herself a former wildlife rehabilitator, had given her enthusiastic go-ahead.

With the help of park staff, Van Orman unloaded a large crate covered with a blanket from her SUV and set it down gently on the wet grass. A few moments later, she unlatched the door.

“Animals being released are generally slow to leave the crate or carrier,” Van Orman said. “They have no idea they’re being released, and some can take quite a while. We allow them to leave the crate on their terms when they’re ready and remain hands off until they have released.”

But this young bird was rocking the crate, ready to go. He peeked out the open door for two seconds, walked out, spread his wings, and in a graceful and determined flight circled and climbed away from the small group watching and disappeared into the woods nearby. The whole process took 15 seconds.

“It was the quickest release ever,” Van Orman said. “I didn’t even have time to take pics with my camera.”

The eagle had come a long way since that stormy Sunday in March when Karyn and Russ Feather found him in their yard on Herron Island, a few miles north of Joemma Beach.

Karyn had let the couple’s dog, a chihuahua-miniature pinscher mix, out in the yard when she saw the eagle standing at the top of the stairs to the beach about 20 feet away, slumped over and barely moving. The Feathers have been coming to the island since the 1980s and are no strangers to bald eagles.

But this was a first.

“He was almost the size of my dog,” she remembers. “He ended up sitting there for several hours, not budging, his head turning a bit from side to side every now and then.”

He lacked the iconic bald eagle white head and tail, which identified him as a young bird, but his talons certainly looked fully developed. “We kept waiting for his parents to come help him. But they never did,” she said.

A neighbor came over and offered the eagle pieces of steak, but he wasn’t interested.

“My husband and I were fascinated and very confused as to what would happen to him,” Karyn said.

They reached out to Kerry Bayliss, an animal control officer with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department who lives on the island. While animal control officers don’t normally handle wildlife, Bayliss is given considerable leeway because of her extensive experience with a long list of species — raccoons, snakes, raptors, possums, bats, and even coyotes.

And now, bald eagles.

Bayliss came over, and as soon as she arrived, she knew the eagle was not well. “He either had an injury, a neurological issue, or was very weak for some reason,” she said. “He was twisting his head around in a very unnatural manner and was not able to fly away from me.”

She went up to him with a blanket that she threw over his head, picked up his body and grabbed his feet with her hands to secure him, and placed him in her extra-large truck kennel. The eagle stayed in the truck, where he spent the night in a half-heated blanket.

She gave him a bowl of water and bits of fish and steak, but he was still not interested.

Bayliss has worked with Dr. Joel Cuthbert at Gig Harbor Wildlife Rescue in the past, so she called him, and he agreed to retrieve the eagle the next day.

Dr. Cuthbert picked up the eagle from Bayliss in the morning, brought him to his clinic, and transported him to West Sound Wildlife Shelter on Bainbridge Island the next day.

West Sound is the closest of the two wildlife rehabilitation facilities in the area; the other facility, Discovery Bay Wild Bird Rescue, is in Port Townsend.

At the shelter, the weak and emaciated bird came under the care of Van Orman, her fellow rehabbers, and the group’s veterinarian. “He was in really poor shape, slumped over and with no interest in food,” she confirmed. “It took a lot of coaxing to get him to eat on his own, including assist-feeding him with tongs, trying different proteins to make it interesting.”

It wasn’t clear what was causing the eagle’s symptoms. Bird flu and lead poisoning were ruled out; lead poisoning is a common problem for eagles who can ingest bullets or fish tackle. Antifungal medication was administered to treat a possible infection, and he was also treated for pain.

According to Sawyer Kibler, wildlife rehabilitation technician and director of education at West Sound, pain medication is given to almost every patient even if there’s no obvious sign of it, since wild animals are “so stoic when it comes to pain.”

The eagle was most likely “last year’s baby,” Kibler thought. Bald eagles in the Pacific Northwest reproduce in late winter, and eaglets fledge in the spring, so it was too early for him to have been born this year. And since he didn’t have the scars or injuries that older birds get as they compete for food, mates, and territory, he probably hadn’t been around longer than a year. He was already independent of his parents when he was found.

After he started eating on his own and had recovered enough, the eagle was placed in a flight cage, a large enclosure where birds can strengthen their flight muscles.

“The day we put him in the flight cage, I was so nervous to see if he could fly,” Van Orman recalled.

“I admit I had some tears when I returned to the flight cage about 30 minutes later, and he was on a perch about 25 feet from the ground. That is when I felt like we were out of the woods with him. It took many weeks for him to regain muscle strength as he had been grounded for an undetermined amount of time.”

By the end of the second month in rehab, the eagle was ready to be released.

Animals are generally released where they were found. Unfortunately, the Feathers’ information fell through the cracks along the way, possibly because Herron Island is private. WSWS worked with an eagle biologist at the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife who suggested Joemma Beach, a regular spot for bald eagles and close enough to the island.

Even so, the Feathers, Kerry Bayliss, and the rest of the island’s residents were overjoyed at news of the release.

“I love finding out about this kind of stuff,” islander Linda Kelly said, who thought she may have even spotted the eagle near the beach not far from the Feathers’ home. “Where humans are actually behaving in a humane way towards the other creatures that share this ball of mud with us.”

For more information about the West Sound Wildlife Shelter, visit https://westsoundwildlife.org/