Back in December we were handed an injured Steppe Eagle, I'm pretty sure that he was a young male bird, no more than 2 years old as he still had signs of his immature plumage. This beautiful bird had suffered a broken wing. We are not sure of the exact circumstances however it was handed to us by some local lads who suspiciously claimed they had found him in the woods. The injury was very characteristic of a stone or stick strike, the wound was fresh, like it had just happened, otherwise the bird was healthy, in perfect feather condition and well fed. Steppe Eagles are predatory raptors but they are also opportunists. In a heavily rural populated country such as Nepal where most people keep chickens, it's likely that this bird had seen a chance to grab an easy meal and was caught in the act.

More often than not, when birds are handed in to us, we are asked to pay a sum of money to the "rescuer". I have had a policy from the very beginning to never hand over money in exchange for a bird as this could encourage people to go out and catch birds then bring them to be me expecting a cash reward. I have now come to expect this and this case was no different. However, the so called rescuers were insistent that I pay them or they were going to physically take the bird back. By this time i had safely locked the Eagle away in an aviary as it was in a great deal of shock. No amount of explaining about how this bird had a broken wing and that it needed proper care and attention convinced then so I literally had to sit in front of the aviary blocking the door to prevent them from trying to get the bird back. This stand off went on for a few hours until they finally left empty handed.

We now had in our possession, a large wild eagle with a severe wing injury. As with all the birds we rescue, our number one priority is to return the bird back to the wild. In some cases, the severity of the injury may prevent this, in particular wing fractures. We have very limited vet care here in Nepal, in fact we don't have any so the questions we have to ask ourselves are:

1. How bad is the injury?
2. Can we fix it?
3. If so, can that bird hunt and survive in the wild?
4. If not then what are it's options?
a) Stay in captivity with us
b) Go to the Zoo in Kathmandu or be re-homed somewhere else
c) Euthanasia.

These are the harsh realities and sometimes very difficult decisions have to be made. On further examination, the fracture didn't look as bad as first thought so after much deliberating, I decided to try to repair the wing and give him a fighting chance.

We secured the wing by strapping it against his body, fairly tight so that he couldn't remove it but not so that it was too restrictive. He was then placed kept in a stress free secluded aviary. After 2 days he began to eat, a few days later he was able to stand and within one week he was hopping onto a log that was placed in the aviary. At this stage, we were still unsure of the prognosis so we just had to wait.

After nearly 8 weeks, we removed the cast and dressing. The wing had healed and the bone looked like it had set in the correct position, things were looking promising. We did notice that he had dropped 4 of his primary flight feathers on the injured wing, we put this down to the fact the the muscles had probably wasted away and were unable to hold the feathers, we hoped that new ones would grow through. A low perch was placed inside the aviary to encourage him to fly up to give his wing some excersice. To our amazement he managed this in the first hour, Clive wanted to fly. After a few more days, 4 new flight feathers had started to appear.

It was decided that in order for him to have the best chances of survival if he was ever going to be released, we would need to see if he could fly. Now this may sound simple, surely you just let him go I hear you say. Not so, firstly he didn't have a full set of primaries on his left wing, and secondly, the chances of him being able to fly well enough to survive were very slim, he would probably end up dying of starvation. Clive would need to be trained, but first he would need to be tamed.

The ultimate goal here is to see if we can release him, return him to the wild from where he came. This will be an amazing achievement since birds with fractured wings rarely recover fully without professional veterinary care. But this is a long way off so In the meantime, I will train Clive to fly with me and then once he is fit enough, I will set him free.

Currently Clive is responding well to training, he is sitting and eating happily on the fist. Today he may even take that first jump to the glove. Progress will be slow as training wild Eagles is very hard especially one recovering from a broken wing. But hopefully one day Clive will be the first wild Eagle ever to be trained to fly with Paragliders and be free again.

Watch this space.

Note: Thanks to Katrina and Tedashi for the pictures.