Baby bald eagle returns home in Pascagoula after extensive rehabilitation

PASCAGOULA, Miss. (WXXV) — A baby bald eagle is returning home in Pascagoula after extensive rehabilitation.

It’s a big day for Woodside Wildlife Rescue. A bald eaglet is finally reuniting with its family and home two months after falling from an 80-foot nesting platform on Singing River Island.

Back in March, WXXV’s Megan Fayard joined Woodside Wildlife Rescue to watch the eaglet and its sibling return to a newly built nesting platform after that dangerous fall, but only one of the babies was able to go home that day.

“We originally came out here back on the 11th of March. We got the call saying that the platform back here behind us had gotten blown down in heavy winds. We came out here because two baby eaglets had landed on the ground. We came out here the very next day to bring them back out after we assessed them to make sure that they were okay, and that’s when we noticed that one of them had a broken leg. So, we built the platform, we placed the one out here, and we took the other one back,” said Alison Sharpe, a board member with Woodside Wildlife Rescue.

The eaglet was then taken to an area vet, its leg was placed in a cast, and it was sent upstate to Debbie Crum at Magnolia Wildlife in Olive Branch for further care.

“When we get these young animals in like this that aren’t self feeding, we have to make sure that they can capture and kill their prey before they can be released. So, she went through what we just commonly call “mouse hunting school.” Of course, you know, an eagle eats things much larger than mice, but she was very self-supportive before she was brought back down here yesterday, and Mrs. Paula [Woodside] called and said ‘When should we release this eagle?’ I said, ‘Tomorrow,'” Sharpe said.

Now, after weeks of rehabilitation and recovery, the second eaglet is finally getting its chance to return to the wild — and back to the place where its story began — a safe and happy return home thanks to rehab efforts across Mississippi.

“I think it’s really important to get these animals back with their families, or out into the proximity of which they come from,” said Sharpe. “It’s always a bitter-sweet thing when you get them in and then you have to release them, because you do become attached to them. They’re just such magnificent animals, but in our hearts, this is the best thing.”