Idaho Team Plans To Attach Prosthetic Beak To Wounded Eagle

St. Maries, ID (AHN) - A team of volunteers in Idaho plans to attach a prosthetic beak to an injured Alaskan bald eagle that lost her upper beak to a bullet.

The eagle, named Beauty,will undergo surgery in June to replace the beak. She was discovered in an Alaskan landfill in 2005. According to her caretakers, she was starving to death because she could no longer tear her food.

The injured bird was hand fed at a bird recovery center in Anchorage for two years before she was brought to Birds of Prey Northwest ranch in Idaho after permits were obtained from the federal government.

Jane Fink Cantwell, a biologist who runs the raptor recovery center, spent the past two years assembling a team to design and build the nylon-composite beak that could aid the 7-year-old bird to live past 50.

The team decided to use glue instead of screws to attach the nylon-composite beak to the eagle because the stump is so close to the brain and eye. If the glue fails to hold the beak, scientists will use screws.

The fake beak won't be strong enough to allow Beauty to cut and tear flesh and go back to the wild.