Experts said a rescued eagle was strong enough to live on her own. The law said she had to be put down.
“She would have made an amazing education animal.”
The sun was setting outside the animal hospital, and Janine Tancredi cradled the eagle’s head in her hands, its beak up by her cheek.
Tancredi, the executive director of the Pocono Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center, didn’t say anything to Aura, the one-legged golden eagle. She closed her eyes, instead, and imagined a better life for the majestic bird. Then she listened to its final breath.
“I just pictured her flying up in the sky somewhere,” Tancredi told The Inquirer on Thursday morning.
Aura’s short life was marred by human interaction, from the fur trap Tancredi said likely took her left foot, to the people feeding her in a Sullivan County backyard, to the federal regulations that became her death sentence Wednesday night at the Doylestown Veterinary Hospital.
Tancredi, 43, said Aura did not need to be euthanized.
“There’s animals that come into our center that have a good life force but their body is suffering and euthanization is what’s best. This bird had a really strong life force and her body was keeping up. She had muscle mass, strong pressure in her remaining foot. She was perfect,” Tancredi said. “It was incredibly sad and frustrating and my hand’s were tied.”
Tancredi said she received a letter Wednesday from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, informing her that migratory birds with injuries “requiring an amputation” cannot be released back into the wild and must be euthanized. Failure to comply could have resulted in the termination of Pocono Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center’s rehabilitation permit.
A prosthetic foot, looking like something out of the Marvel Universe, is in transit but too late to matter, Tancredi said.
When asked to comment on this specific eagle, a USFWS spokesperson said the agency was committed to “working with others through the Migratory Bird Program to conserve bald and golden eagles.” That spokesperson referred The Inquirer to the same USFWS regulations that discussed animals with amputations.
“We understand that caring for injured birds can be challenging and emotional at times, and we sometimes have to make difficult decisions using the best available scientific information while acting in the best interest of the birds,” the regulations read.
Aura, Tancredi said, had already been living in the wild with an amputation long before she was picked up. She believes the eagle had likely spotted prey by a fur trap and swooped in, only to have it snap shut and sever her foot.
“The vets we’ve talked to believe the injury happened anywhere from 8 to 12 months ago,” Tancredi said. “There was already calcification on the bone and she was using that alternate leg as a sort of peg leg, balancing it and using it to land and ambulate.”
Aura was found in the backyard of a home in Dushore, Sullivan County in June. Tancredi said people were feeding the eagle, a well-intentioned gesture that almost always ends badly for wildlife.
“The biggest thing anyone can learn about this, is that you should never feed wildlife,” Tancredi said. “By feeding, they become dependent or lazy.”
Once at the Pocono center in Stroudsburg, Aura put on weight, Tancredi said. They were doing “live prey testing,” in which live mice and rats would be tossed into an enclosed flight area for Aura to catch and eat.
“And she was getting them,” Tancredi said.
Aura was also being trained for a different life, as an educational bird, in case she couldn’t be released into the wild. Workers at the nonprofit were training her to perch on gloves. Tancredi said an “exhibition permit” is required for that purpose and Pocono has not received one from USFWS despite applying. Tancredi say the center has applied multiple times and never received a permit.
“She would have made an amazing education animal,” Tancredi said.
Tancredi said no one from USFWS ever came to visit Aura and see the progress that the staff had made with her.
The Pocono Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center is caring for 900 animals, Tancredi said, with about 150 of them birds. Golden eagles, Tancredi said, are commonly found along woodlands in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Aura’s carcass, Tancredi said, will be sent to the National Eagle Repository in Colorado, where eagle parts and feathers are distributed to Native Americans and Alaska Natives who are enrolled members of federally recognized tribes throughout the United States.