In April, a Wellington veterinarian found an injured bald eagle along State Road 80 amid the sugar cane fields near Loxahatchee. He had been struck and was unable to fly.
Now, 111 days later, he’s free. Extensive treatment and physical therapy have allowed the eagle to recover and get back out in the wild.
“There was no way I was going to drive past it,” said Dr. Carol Holland, who found the bird on April 4. She was headed to Sarasota for a horse show when she saw it stranded.
“They’re never just sitting on the side of the road like that, and I knew it had to be injured,” she said. “It was right on the side of the road — it wasn’t even in the grass.”
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Broken pelvis, swollen wing grounded American bald eagle in Palm Beach County
Doctors weren’t originally sure of what happened to the eagle but assumed he flew into something or was hit by a car based on his injuries.
Carolina Montano of the South Florida Wildlife Center said that when her Fort Lauderdale-based site received the bird, he not only had a fractured pelvis, but a swollen left wing as well.