A bald eagle recently taken to the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia (ACCA) for treatment received some uncommon diagnostic testing at a unique facility.
The adult male eagle arrived at the ACCA about two weeks ago after it was found in Elkins by the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
“On initial exam the bird was emaciated, so very underweight and was overall somewhat weak,” said Dr. Jesse Fallon of the ACCA.
Fallon said they found no evidence of fractures or soft tissue injuries that would prevent flight.
What was seen was the eagle had trouble maintaining balance and he had a noticeable head tilt to one side.
After some standard diagnostics and X-rays, the ACCA team knew there was some sort of neurological abnormality causing his head tilt issue and not eating.
The eagle was also tested for infectious diseases, but tested negative for both West Nile Virus and Avian Influenza, which are the most common diseases causing the clinical signs being seen, Fallon said.
“He did have elevated blood lead concentration, but I didn’t feel that it was high enough to be causing the severity of clinical signs that we were seeing,” Fallon said.
The doctor realized that to dig deeper into what was going on with the eagle, they would need to get imaging of the brain, which can really only be done with an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scan.
“We don’t have an MRI either at Cheat Lake Animal Hospital or ACCA. In fact, there is no MRI specifically for animals locally,” he said.
There is a place in Morgantown that has just what the doctor ordered.
“We reached out to the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute at WVU Medicine and they were willing to collaborate with us and help get some images of the brain and also to work with their neuroradiologist to evaluate the images and to look for lesions that could indicate things like trauma or stroke-like events, or even a brain tumor,” Fallon said.
Anesthesia was carefully monitored and administered by Fallon and the eagle’s veterinary team, while the neuroscience institute’s radiology team took the images.
“The images of the eagle’s brain are amazing — the eyeballs and beak are enormous,” the ACCA said.
After reviewing the images, no majorly obvious abnormalities could be seen – no evidence of trauma, no evidence of stroke-like events, no evidence of a tumor – all good news.
This still leaves the issue somewhat unsolved, but that doesn’t mean rehabilitation work won’t continue.
“We’ve ruled out essentially all the things that could be attributing to ongoing problems and so our plan is to continue with supportive care,” Fallon explained.
“The bird is now eating on its own and showing signs of improvement, so we will continue that sort of supportive therapy, do some physical therapy with his head and neck and legs to try to see if we could get him to a point where he is stable, no longer unsteady on his feet, and is holding his head more normally.”
Fallon said after all of the diagnostics done, they cannot give a definite diagnosis, but there are a few possibilities of what could be wrong with the bird.
“Even though we didn’t see lesions on the MRI, it’s still possible that there could be some trauma that has resolved. However, at this point, I believe our most likely scenario is lead toxicity. He had that lead elevation that was only moderately elevated at the time of admission. It’s very possible that it was quite a bit higher than that in the weeks prior to us getting him,” he speculated.
“So the fact that he was very emaciated suggested he had been having a hard time getting food for probably one to two weeks or more and it’s possible that he had a big toxic insult from the lead ingestion and that caused some hopefully reversible neurologic deficits that with time will improve.”
There is a possibility that the damage done will not be reversible; only time will tell.
The ACCA has treated several bald eagles over the past few years. Fallon said the eagle population is on the rise in the state and they are doing better and better each year, but there is still a lot of room for population growth.
