Finding a New Home

From left, Kathryn Ketenbach, Hannah Hsu and Jen Hamel, three volunteers from MU’s Raptor Rehabilitation Project carry a release box containing L’aiglon, a male bald eagle. The eagle was brought to MU in November suffering from a broken left wing. The volunteers nursed the eagle back to health over the last eight months.
Photos by
Missourian   ¦  ALEX GRIGSBY/Missourian

About a dozen people watched Sunday as MU’s Raptor Rehabilitation Project released a 4-year-old bald eagle in Easley on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River.

L’aiglon, which is the French word for “eaglet,” was rescued in November 2006 from a farm in Callaway County. He had metacarpal fractures in his left wing, which is equivalent to a person fracturing the bones in the palm of his or her hand, said Kathryn Ketenbach, a recent MU grad and a member of the project.

Jen Hamel, also a project member, said the project wanted L’aiglon to be released at least a mile away from a nesting site because bald eagles can be territorial. The closest site was determined to be more than three miles away in the Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, she said, which hopefully will give L’aiglon “easy living.”

Erin West of the Raptor Rehabilitation Project was happy to see L’aiglon fly off into the wild.