Skip to content

Eagle rescue draws crowd to Marine Drive

Members of Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society worked Thursday along Marine Drive to rescue an injured bird.
11258whiterockEagleRescue-ng070314-15
A member of the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society holds onto a rope as he lowers himself down into the brush just south of Marine Drive

An effort to rescue an injured eagle drew a crowd to the Marine Drive hump Thursday afternoon.

Eagle wing

Members of the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (OWL) were searching the brush just south of Marine Drive, near Centre Street, for an eagle that neighbours said appeared to be in some distress.

A nearby tree houses a large eagle nest that – according to onlookers who live in the neighbourhood – was the site of an altercation between two of the large birds a day earlier.

On Wednesday afternoon, one neighbour said two eagles could be seen fighting atop the tree, near the nest. Eventually, they tumbled down the length of the tree and crashed into the brush below. One bird – with some feathers missing and an apparent injury to its wing – returned to the top of tree after the fall, but one did not, he said.

Eagle head

It wasn't until late Thursday morning that other passersby noticed the second eagle, injured, at the bottom of another nearby tree. Attempts to help the bird caused it to scurry away and further down the slope and into a thicket of bushes and branches.

By mid-afternoon Thursday, however, the bird had been located and according to OWL "just flew away" when rescuers tried to reach it.