Eastern Imperial Eagle in Exotics Clinic

I was in the Exotics Clinic this week when a professor asked me to help him take something upstairs. I followed him and soon realised it was a bird, an Eastern Imperial Eagle which had been brought in by a member of the public.

Unfortunately the bird was completely blind in one eye and had been hit by a car while it was feeding at the roadside, resulting in a compound fracture of the tibiotarsus. The wound was very dirty with dead tissue so the bird was given inhalation anaesthesia while we cleaned the leg and placed a thermoplastic cast and bandaged him up.

The Eastern Imperial Eagle is a breed threatened with extension in Europe so as he is blind and no injured it is hoped that he will recover and be placed in a captive breeding programme to help the future population.