What an extremely patriotic moment, a mechanical engineer had offered to design an artificial beak for the bald eagle and eventually “A dentist, veterinarian and other experts eventually volunteered to help” this bald eagle get its beak back.  The team has been working for the past two years on a bionic beak attachment for Beauty the bald eagle.

Beauty was found in 2005 starving to death as she scrounged for food in an Alaskan landfill.  Most of the curved part of her upper beak was missing after being shot away, leaving her sinuses and tongue completely exposed.  Beauty was left unable to clutch or tear at her food.

All hope had been lost after a two year long wait to see if her beak would grow back and they thought that they would have to euthanize her.

Beauty was taken in 2007 to Cantwell’s Birds of Prey Northwest ranch in Idaho after permits were obtained from the federal government.

Molds were made of the existing beak parts and scanned into a computer, so the bionic beak could be created as accurately as possible.

The beak will not function at 100% like her original, but it will allow her to be more natural in her enclosed environment.  She will not be able to be back out in the wild, which is unfortunate, but she has the ability to live to the age of 50, with the help of human intervention.

There is much more to read, so check it out here.

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail