‘Storm’ the eagle returns to the skies after life-saving feather transplant

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A wedge-tailed eagle injured in wild weather early last year has finally returned home after receiving a life-saving feather transplant. 'Storm' the eagle was found injured and hungry and could not fly prior to his lengthy rehabilitation at the Healesville sanctuary in rural Victoria.

Transcript

00:00So, 13 months ago, Storm came to us after a storm, which is how he got his name.

00:07He was found on the ground, most of his feathers in his wings had been completely damaged and

00:14ripped off or torn out, and he wasn't able to fly.

00:18And it's just recently that we've been able to release him.

00:21In this case, we used imping, which is a method by which we return the function of flight

00:26to birds that have damaged feathers.

00:28So it requires the use of a donor feather from another bird of the same species that

00:34we can then implant into the base of the receiving bird.

00:40So essentially, they get replacement feathers and can immediately get their flight back.

00:45It was actually one of the most amazing releases that we've done.

00:49We didn't know, we never know what to expect.

00:52He came out of his enclosure, he turned around and waited and looked at us for some time.

00:57He flew off to a nearby branch for another little while.

01:02He then flew over us to say hello again, he did some little laps around us and then we

01:07saw him fly off and he was able to reunite temporarily with his original parents.

01:14It was just luck that we managed to get a feather donor after he arrived.

01:18But now, any birds that for whatever reason, do not survive their traumatic injuries, we

01:26can now save those feathers in a bank and we'll be able to use those feathers to fly

01:31again to help other birds that might have similar injuries.

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