P.E.I. bald eagle receives rare surgery, heads to new home in Halifax

He won't be able to soar into the skies or skim the waters with his wings, but a bald eagle treated at the Atlantic Veterinary College after being hit by a car, is doing well.

He won’t be able to soar into the skies or skim the waters with his wings, but a bald eagle treated at a veterinary college at the University of Prince Edward Island after being hit by a car in October 2021 is doing well and settling in a new home.

Bald eagle 450 — the 450th patient of the Atlantic Veterinary College hospital in 2021 — is believed to be only the second bird in the world to receive surgery for a spinal cord compression.

“It was maybe done on a penguin like 20 years ago, but there were no real papers on it,” wildlife technician Fiep de Bie said in a recent interview, adding that the procedure is “sometimes” done on cats or dogs.

“That was very exciting. A week after the surgery, the eagle was able to stand, so we knew that we were going in the right direction,” de Bie said.

“When 450 was brought into the clinic, he had extensive head injuries and small cuts and bruises on his legs, she said. “He had a lot of blood on his head and all his feathers on his head were gone.”

A week after he was admitted, she said staff noticed the eagle wasn’t able to stand.

“We thought, ‘What’s going on?’ We took X-rays and we noticed that there was an issue with the spine, but we couldn’t see precisely what it was. We did a CT scan.”

The CT scan confirmed a spinal fracture, de Bie said. “It also showed a spinal cord compression. The nerves are sort of pinched. That caused paralysis.”