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A 2-week-old baby bald eagle is back in a Pennsylvania nest with its family after undergoing surgery to remove a fish hook from its stomach.
The West Virginia-based Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia said viewers watching livestream video of the nest below the U.S. Steel Irvin Plant in West Mifflin noticed the eaglet ingesting a fish hook that was in a trout fed to it by its parents on April 18.
Tamarack Wildlife Center in Crawford County, educational partner for the U.S. Steel and Glen Hazel bald eagle webcams, set about organizing a rescue plan for the baby bird.
A certified arborist was employed to visit the nest and bring the eaglet down to the ground.
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The baby was taken to Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia, where Jesse Fallon, director of veterinary medicine, took charge of its treatment.
Fallon determined the hook was too far down in the eaglet’s stomach to be removed via endoscopy, so the hook and its attached synthetic lure were removed via surgery.
The eaglet spent 10 more days at the center while veterinarians supervised its recovery.
“So far, its favorite food seems to be trout (with the hooks removed, of course!),” the center said in an April 18 update on social media.
The eaglet was determined to be healthy enough to return to the nest on Tuesday. The bird was placed next to its two sleeping siblings by arborists who then left the area prior to the parents’ return.
“We anticipate that his parents will accept him and resume caring for him like nothing happened,” the center said.
