Injured bald eagle dies

A bald eagle injured with a collision with a vehicle on Interstate 55 has died.

Sgt. Clark Parrott of the Missouri State Highway Patrol recalls the afternoon the collision happened, hearing a trooper on police radio reporting that a bald eagle had been hit by a vehicle. Last Tuesday, the injured bald eagle was taken from the crash site on Interstate 55 in Jackson and brought to Cape Girardeau for treatment. Pictures of the eagle, a notorious symbol of America, were circulated online. Little if any blood was visible in the photos, where the eagle appeared alert and fairly healthy. X-rays showed no broken bones. The eagle was confirmed to be a female.

Although the sight of a downed eagle was a novelty for some the firefighters and state troopers responding, the accident did not surprise Sgt. Parrott.

"Bald eagles are beautiful, but they are some of the biggest scavengers out there. If there's a dead animal by the side of the road they will feast on it for a while, and I'm guessing that's what was going on when a car came by," Parrott said.

Other than the eagle, no one suffered any injuries, although, according to Parrott, the impact with the eagle was forceful enough to break a car windshield.

On Thursday night, the eagle succumbed to her wounds and died in the basement of Watkins Wildlife Rehab. The morning before the eagle's death, Caroline Watkins was cautiously optimistic.

"I think she will get better, I'm very hopeful, I'm gonna do everything I can. I'm going to work just as hard as I can to see that she gets better," she said.

But Watkins also mentioned that the eagle was barely eating. The bird could not keep down the few pieces of fish and deer meat it accepted from Watkins, nor its prescrbed antibiotics. Despite its healthy appearance in the released photos, Watkins reported that the bird had lost "a lot of blood" in the accident.

According to the state Department of Conservation, the bald eagle population in the lower 48 states dropped by 85% before conservation efforts of the 1970s were able to reverse the trend. Even as of 2010, just 200 pairs of bald eagles were reported to nest in all of Missouri. Each pair of eagles stays wedded to their mate for life. Females, such as the one that died yesterday, lay only one to three eggs a year.

It's not the first bald eagle Watkins has seen hit by a vehicle, although it was the first bald eagle she's seen hit on the interstate.

"When eagles are zeroed in on a kill, they are totally oblivious to everything else, even in the middle of the road," Watkins said.