Some happy news happened on Friday when a rehabilitated juvenile bald eagle was released into the wild after several weeks of special veterinary care.
The eagle was found two weeks ago near a Loudoun County landfill. It was sick and unable to fly so a team from the Blue Ridge Wildlife Center took it into its care.
The young eagle was found to have high levels of lead in its blood — a common finding for eagles in the area, according to the folks at Blue Ridge.
“Lead toxicity in wildlife comes primarily from wildlife eating the lead fragments of ammunition in gut piles or dead deer that were previously shot, but survived long enough to get away from a hunter, or that a hunter left behind,” the BRWC wrote in a press release.
The center treated the eagle for lead poisoning and then made sure it was ready to fly again and survive on its own. This led to Friday’s release at the Evergreen Christian School in Leesburg.
The video of the big moment is below.
