{"id":419115,"date":"2026-01-19T10:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T10:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/419115\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T10:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T10:42:08","slug":"i-thought-shed-like-a-lasagna-rescuer-lures-injured-bald-eagle-from-b-c-dump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/419115\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I thought she’d like a lasagna’: Rescuer lures injured bald eagle from B.C. dump"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

It’s likely the last dinner you want after a long weekday, but a frozen lasagna was exactly what Ed Butler used last week to rescue a juvenile bald eagle from a B.C. landfill.<\/p>\n

Butler, who is from the Tl’esqox (formerly Toosey Band) west of Williams Lake, said he got a message from his friend on Jan. 7 that there was an eagle at the Nimpo Lake dump and she couldn’t fly.<\/p>\n

“I went up there and tried to catch it, but [it] was a little bit too fast for my old self,” he told Sarah Penton, host of CBC’s Radio West. “And, like, she was hopping along the ground.”<\/p>\n

The eagle, as it turned out, was stuck in a fishing net in the dump. Butler’s friend managed to free it, but he was unsuccessful in trying to corral it.<\/p>\n

LISTEN | Butler reached for frozen lasagna in a eureka moment:<\/p>\n

Radio West13:33Juvenile bald eagle saved from dump in Cariboo region <\/p>\n

Ed Butler\u00a0found the injured eagle at the Nimpo Lake dump. Sue Burton is a longtime wildlife rescue volunteer in Williams Lake. Together, they saved the bird of prey, with the help of a lasagna.<\/p>\n

That’s when Butler went to the store and bought the bird a frozen lasagna.<\/p>\n

“I thought she’d like a lasagna, you know?” he said.<\/p>\n

“She just loved it. She ate the whole thing.”<\/p>\n

Despite the bird of prey successfully hunting the meaty pasta, Butler still hadn’t managed to catch the eagle \u2014 so he called the SPCA.<\/p>\n

\"AThe juvenile bald eagle is now in the care of the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in Delta, B.C. (Submitted by Sue Burton)<\/p>\n

A local SPCA rescuer met him at the dump around 9 p.m. that night. When they arrived, the injured eagle was sitting on a log and did not attempt to flee. They were able to walk up to the bird and safely wrap it in a jacket to contain it and take her to a vet, where they determined she’d hurt her wing.<\/p>\n

Longtime wildlife volunteer Sue Burton, who lives in near Williams Lake, helped eventually get the bird the care it needed.<\/p>\n

After a few days in Burton’s care, the bird was taken to the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in Delta, B.C.<\/p>\n

Burton said that eagles, just like ravens, can be chatty birds \u2014 responding to human body movements and cues.<\/p>\n

“You sit down, you talk to them \u2014 and sometimes you get a response and sometimes you get that angry look … she was kind of talky,” Burton recalled.<\/p>\n

Waiting for lasagna<\/p>\n

Butler has nicknamed the injured bird “Freedom,” and says eagles are treasured in Tl’esqox culture.<\/p>\n

When the SPCA volunteers first arrived to help Butler with the injured bird, he recalls seeing another bird flying from a dirt hill to a nearby tree.<\/p>\n

He said there’s four more of the eagle’s siblings there near the dump \u2014 joking that “they’re always there, sitting in the tree, waiting for lasagna.”<\/p>\n

Burton and Butler said they would love to be present when the bird is released back into the wild after its rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

For Butler, he said the episode is a reminder for people to properly dispose of their fishing nets, so that birds and other wildlife don’t get caught in them at the landfill.<\/p>\n

As for the rescue itself, he said it felt awesome and he would “do it again and again.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-419115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}