Rescue mission saves eagle

An bald eaglet is less endangered this week after surviving a harrowing fall from its nest late last month.
A Jackfish Lake cottage owner awoke early June 25 to find the eaglet fell onto his porch. The nest, which also housed another eaglet, was in a white pine above the porch.
Rather than leave the eaglet to fend for itself, the cottage owner threw a blanket over it and took the five-week-old bird to a rock on the lake its parents fly over.
“He was afraid his dog would get it,” noted Nellie Halverson of Bill and Nellie’s Lake Despair Lodge.
The cottage owner also hoped the parents would see the eaglet and come to its aid. That didn’t happen.
Still concerned about the bird’s plight, the cottage owner asked at the lodge to see what could be done. That’s when the rescue mission began.
Halverson called the Ministry of Natural Resources in Fort Frances and spoke with area biologist Darryl McLeod.
“The best thing for the bird to allow it to survive was to get it back into the nest,” McLeod said, noting parental care is essential to eaglet survival. “There was almost no chance of it surviving if humans took care of it.
“It’s an endangered species to start with,” he added.
Rather than wait and risk the eaglet being taken by gulls or have its body temperature go too high or low, McLeod called Mike Cawston of Ontario Hydro–someone with climbing experience–for help.
The duo, with the help of Lake Despair Lodge guide Jerry Elliott, headed up to Jackfish Lake that same day to put the bird back in the nest. Coincidentally, McLeod had just been in Voyageurs National Park in International Falls learning how to band eaglets, which required both climbing and bagging the eagles.
“I had just learned the week before,” he laughed.
Because of the people who volunteered their time, the eaglet is alive and well–and has become the talk of the lake. People also are checking in on the eaglet to monitor its progress.
McLeod noted both eaglets in the nest are almost fledged, which means they soon will be learning to fly.
“Now it’s a bald eagle that’ll probably never want to leave because it’s been treated so well,” Halverson chuckled.