Eagle 2N is raising young with her mate in the Bighorn Basin, but by all\u00a0rights\u00a0she shouldn\u2019t even be here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When the golden eagle\u00a0was about a year old, she was found by the highway near Meeteetse, apparently having been struck by a car.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If that wasn\u2019t bad enough, rescuers discovered she was also suffering from lead poisoning, a frequent killer of golden eagles\u00a0and other Wyoming raptors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But she pulled through, and Susan Ahalt, who runs Ironside Bird Rescue in Cody, dubbed her\u00a0Aurum, which is Latin for gold.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is just absolutely the most beautiful girl,\u201d said Ahalt, who has run Ironside for 34 years\u00a0and nursed 2N\/Aurum back to health in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n
2N\/Aurum is familiar to raptor researchers, who hope her life will help shed light on how to conserve Wyoming\u2019s dwindling population of golden eagles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
First Captured As A Fledgling\u00a0<\/p>\n
Raptor researcher Chuck Preston first captured and banded 2N in July 2020, when she was just a fledgling. A fledgling is a young eagle that can leave the nest and fly, but isn\u2019t quite ready to be completely on its own.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the time, he had no idea whether he\u2019d see or hear about the young eagle again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Preston knew\u00a0odds are that he wouldn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About half of golden eagles don\u2019t survive their first two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And of those that survive, only 25% make it to age 5 and hatch and fledge young of their own.<\/p>\n
When 2N was found by the roadside in 2021, it seemed that she\u2019d already lost to the grim odds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vehicle strikes are a leading cause of golden eagle deaths in Wyoming, Preston said. And lead poisoning is also near the top of the list.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Golden eagles and other raptors contract lead poisoning mainly by eating gut piles or carcass parts from big-game animals shot with lead bullets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why raptor conservationists admonish hunters to switch to bullets made from copper or other lead alternatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Healthy Diet Of Rats\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Ahalt wasn\u2019t ready to give up on her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the eagle\u2019s miserable condition when she was brought into the rescue center, she had a couple advantages, Ahalt told Cowboy State Daily.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vehicle strike didn\u2019t break her,\u201d said Ahalt, meaning\u00a0the eagle hadn\u2019t suffered any broken bones.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead, she was severely bruised from the impact, she said.<\/p>\n
Moreover, 2N\u2019s lead poisoning, while serious, wasn\u2019t so grave that it would require injecting her with a counteracting agent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead, 2N could be treated with pills.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was a good eater,\u201d Ahalt said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI fed her rats. I would cut open a dead rat\u2019s belly, put the pill inside the rat, and she would swallow it right down,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take long for the eagle to regain enough strength to be released back into the wild, Ahalt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While it was encouraging to hear that Eagle 2N had pulled through, things didn\u2019t bode well for her future as a mother, Preston said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Frequently, eagles that survive lead poisoning can\u2019t successfully breed afterward, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Back Again, With A Family<\/p>\n
Wyoming is prime golden eagle habitat, both for resident eagles and those that migrate in from the north during the fall to spend winters here.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bald eagles eat mostly fish, so they like hanging out near lakes and rivers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Golden eagles prefer small game such as prairie dogs and rabbits, so they\u2019re drawn to open prairies or vast sagebrush steppes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Wyoming\u2019s golden eagle population is struggling, said Preston, who\u00a0was the founding curator of the Draper Natural History Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve suffered from human encroachment on their core habitat, and many have also been killed by wind turbine blades, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And many are illegally shot, Preston added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On top of all of that, the Bighorn Basin, where Eagle 2N was born and fledged, had a massive outbreak of rabbit hemorrhagic disease in 2020, diminishing the eagles\u2019 main prey base there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Amid\u00a0all of that, it was thrilling to hear that researchers from the Teton Raptor Center this summer captured and examined Eagle 2N, \u201cabout 15 to 20 miles, as the eagle flies, from where she was fledged,\u201d Preston said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019d been monitoring the territory since 2009\u00a0and considered it \u201cabandoned\u201d by golden eagles\u00a0because there had been no evidence of breeding there for a few years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, 2N and her mate have hatched two offspring, which have grown into fledglings. They were also captured and banded, Preston said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s estimated that the fledglings were \u201cat least two weeks apart\u201d in age, he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s rare, because young golden eagles typically hatch only days apart, Preston said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese birds have definitely beaten the odds,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
If all goes well, the fledglings should take off completely on their own by early autumn, he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ahalt said she was thrilled to hear that 2N\/Aurum was thriving, with a family of their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I rehabilitate eagles, I very rarely get to hear about them ever again,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n