Healed bald eagle to be set free [Video]

Licensed Gravette rehabilitator, 1 of 13 in state, nurses birds

— Lynn Sciumbato, a meek woman with a compact frame, bravely climbs into enclosed spaces with sharp-taloned wild birds that outsize many family dogs.

Lynn Sciumbato, a meek woman with a compact frame, bravely climbs into enclosed spaces with sharp-taloned wild birds that outsize many family dogs.

Healed bald eagle to be set free

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Sciumbato is one of 13 Arkansans with a federal permit to rehabilitate birds of prey including hawks, vultures, owls and eagles.

She'll share her passion Sunday, allowing the public to join her in releasing a bald eagle at Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area, near Rogers, which she's nursed to health since March.

"A lot of people say 'Oh, how can you let them go after you've nursed them this way?'" Sciumbato said. "And that's the very best part is watching them fly free."

Rehabilitating bald eagles requires equal parts patience and bravery, she said. Injured birds are most frequently spotted by hikers or drivers along the shores of Beaver Lake,who often scoop the smaller ones up and take them to a veterinarian.

But bald eagles, which come equipped with a knifelike beak and a wingspan that tops out at 8 feet, are generally left by the roadside for Sciumbato or Arkansas Fish and Wildlife officers to retrieve.

"Eagles are big," she said. "You don't just suck it up andpick up an eagle."

For Sciumbato, it takes a dog kennel built for a great Dane and a Ford Expeditionto transport the nation's symbol to the vet, where it is diagnosed and stabilized.

Sciumbato then takes the birds home, administering medications and hand-feeding them in her "intensive care unit," a small, climate-controlled building. She teaches them to fly in an enclosed flight space in her backyard.

"It almost always happens that the first time you put them out after they've been sitting still for a month, they can't fly," she said. "They just sit there, and, just for a minute, you think 'Oh my gosh.'"

The eagle set for Sunday's release, a large female found in Carroll County, came in with large, bright green bruises under her wing from an unknown injury.

After a month without flight, she became a "bit of a perch potato," threatening her muscle strength with her own laziness. So Sciumbato began exercising her daily by entering the flight pen and waving her arms to encourage the large bird to swoop back and forth over her head.

"It is intimidating, but this is how you exercise an eagle," she said Wednesday as the bird flew a few inches from her face. "She's flying like achamp now."

Lynn Life and Patrick Hayden, veterinarians at New Hope Animal Hospital in Rogers, diagnosed, treated and stabilized the bird for free.

"I just think it's the right thing to do," Life said. "I believe in our creatures, and we're always pushing them out of their natural habitat. If there's something we can do to help them, we should."

The vets try to stress the animals as little as possible by handling them minimally, wearing thick, arm-length leather gloves to protect their hands.

The most common eagle injuries are broken wings and lead poisoning from tainted fish, which can be treated with a calcium medication that binds the poison and carries it out of the bird's system, Life said.

Wing injuries are treated with pins and wires that help to stabilize fragile bones until they can naturally mend.

The vets also deal with plenty of gunshot wounds, despite federal laws that forbid hunting the protected species. The federal Bald Eagle Protection Act makes it illegal to harm, kill or possess a bald eagle without a federal permit.

When the birds were added to the endangered species list in 1967, there were 450 pairs nesting in the continental United States. Bald eagles have since been taken off of the list thanks to regulations banning DDT, a pesticide additive that made eagle eggs brittle, and wildlife rehabilitation. There are now an estimated 9,700 pairs in the lower 48 states.

Sciumbato also rehabilitates mammals under a state permit, hand-feeding abandoned baby squirrels and opossums. Migrating birds fall under federal jurisdiction because they make their homes in several states. They usually settle on the shores of Beaver Lake during the winter months, flying north as the weather warms.

If a bird can't fly, Sciumbato must acquire an additional permit to keep it as an "educational bird," or she must euthanize it. There's about a 50 percent success rate with rehabilitating eagles, and she releases about three or four a year.

The birds must flap theirwings frequently to stay in the air in her 14-foot-tall flight pen. But when she opens her arms on the shores of the water, releasing their wings, they quickly get to a height where they can soar.

"A lot of these birds are absolutely miserable when they can't do what they were born to do," Sciumbato said. "Given a choice, if we could ask them whether they'd want to live in a cage for the rest of their life or be put to sleep, they'd choose euthanasia." To contact this reporter:

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BALD EAGLE RELEASE

Lynn Sciumbato will have an educational demonstration with several birds at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area visitor center on Arkansas 12, east of Rogers.

The eagle release, open to the public, is set to follow at 2 p.m.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11, 18 on 09/26/2009

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