Injured bald eagle, healed with fish skin, released back into the wild

USA Today

3 days ago

Veterinarians saved the raptor from a devastating leg injury using a pioneering fish skin treatment. They released her back to freedom days before Independence Day.
A badly injured bald eagle saved by a pioneering fish skin treatment is back in the wild, just in time for the Fourth of July.
The bird, named Kere, was on the verge of death when volunteers brought her to the Winged Freedom Raptor Hospital in northern Wisconsin last August. Her leg was ripped open from knee to ankle, and maggots and bacteria had begun to fill the dried-out wound.
'It was horrendous,' said Veterinarian Kim Ammann. But the doctor saw a flicker of hope: the eagle was somehow standing on the bandaged-up leg, and its talons still worked.
'That's when I started to figure I was going to need something to close the wound,' said Ammann
A few Google searches later, Ammann stumbled on the Icelandic company Kerecis, which transplants the skin of North Atlantic cod to help heal human wounds and support tissue regeneration. The treatment had never been used on a species of raptor before, but Ammann took a leap and sent them an email.
Almost 'immediately,' she said the company reached back out and offered the descaled, medical fish skin free of charge to the all-volunteer veterinary hospital.
Within weeks, Ammann gave Kere, who is named in honor of the company, the first of two successful surgical skin grafts. The rest of her recovery included about 10 months of grueling wound care, bandage changes, and a mini vacation in the hospital's Eagle flyway rehabilitation enclosure.
'There was something very special about the fact that she was an eagle and that she was allowing me to do this,' Ammann said of the bird. 'That tolerance was part of what made it possible.'
By June 22, the wild bald eagle was ready to soar free again. The date was more about ensuring Kere had 'the majority of the summer months' to reacclimate with being wild again. But the symbolism of releasing a bald eagle so close to the Fourth of July wasn't lost on Ammann
A group of about a hundred viewers gathered to watch Kere take flight above the forests and fields. Amann described the day as 'magical.'
'She could decide whether she wanted to go east or west. She could decide what lake she wanted to go to,' Ammann said. 'I was so happy for her to have her independence back.'
A conservation success story
Bald eagles, an iconic symbol of the United States, are among the most protected species in the country.
But they haven't always been.
The bird's population began plummeting in the late 1800s as American industrialization began changing the landscape, destroying their habitats and introducing lead into the environment.
In 1940, the federal government enacted The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act prohibiting people from hunting, selling or possessing an eagle ‒ in effort to prevent further population decline.
But decades later, pesticides, including DDT, seeped into waterways and further endangered the species. The chemicals were believed to thin bald eagle eggs, decreasing the bird's reproductive success. The bald eagle population hit an all-time low in the 1960s, with just 417 nesting pairs in the continental U.S, according to the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.
The United States banned DDT in 1972 and passed The Endangered Species Act in 1973, to protect quickly disappearing species like the bald eagle. The raptor was taken off the endangered species list in 2007 as conservation efforts led to a population surge.
Today, there are an estimated 316,000 bald eagles in the lower 48 states. And in 2024, they became the country's national bird .