Remember Beauty?

Beauty was admitted to Bird TLC as the 19th bald eagle in March of 2005. She was found at the dump in Dutch Harbor trying to survive. From there she gained a lot of attention while in Alaska from the local news, Jeff Corwin and many others. Unfortunately, Bird TLC had reached the end of it's capabilities for what it could do to make this eagle a presentable education bird.

Cindy worked hard trying to find a facility that was capable of care taking Beauty. She had a lot of baggage. She has to be hand fed, she is a large eagle, she can be aggressive but can't bite. Along came Birds of Prey NW and Janie Fink Cantwell.

This fine organization in Idaho took Beauty under their wing (sorry for the pun) and started training her so they could work with her for education programs. Janie put together a team to include engineers, dentist, biologist and more to design a prosthetic device to replace her missing upper beak. Yesterday I got this email from Janie....

Dear Dave,

A long awaited event will soon be occurring for your special friend ‘Beauty” the bald eagle. April 28th is b-day for her, a day when she will finally receive her new prosthetic beak. As promised, this biologist has created a team of professionals that have been planning for this for well over a year. To date she has undergone four separate sets of impressions, been hand-fed daily, and recently, her first television debut. In anticipation for her second showing in April, I thought your clinic staff and volunteers would enjoy seeing their old friend. Please go to kivitv.com, our Boise Idaho ABC affiliate, and search “Beauty Beak”, there you’ll find a four minute video piece that aired on our efforts to date. Enjoy the spot!

We are shooting a documentary that day in April to chronicle her life in captivity. It will cost some $15,000, but we feel she is worth it! Is there any chance that you can obtain from Cindy, the footage of Beauty upon my Alaskan visit, when your own television station was there to film her sending off? I understand that Animal Planet filmed a piece on her admission way back when, and I would also like to include it in our film or understand how to find it. We, of course want to include your clinic’s beginning efforts in the documentary as well. Help me to locate these video streams won’t you, so we can do her justice!

We are optimistic that April 28th will be a successful day for her, but until time passes beyond, we can only hope that our efforts will have paid off in the long term. I will be returning one day for our victory celebration, to Anchorage, where it all began for her. While Beauty will not make the journey, (she doesn’t travel well), I will carry her spirit of triumph with me, and we shall rejoice and know that justice has been served!!

Jane Fink Cantwell
Raptor Biologist
Birds of Prey NW
In North Idaho

Sorry, I gotta go. I'm getting a little chocked up writing this and it's getting a little long. But now you now how Beauty is doing so far at BOPNW.