RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. (KTHV) - Officers say someone shot and killed a Bald Eagle just north of Magazine. They brought it to Lynne Slater, the director for HAWK Center, also known as Helping Arkansas' Wild Kritters. She, along with others at the Pope County rescue agency, worked diligently to bring the Eagle back to good health, but ultimately the shooter killed it.
"I think it's un-American, it's tragic." Lynne Slater reflects on the recent loss of one of her patients, a Bald Eagle."You can't mistake a bald eagle for any other bird; it doesn't look like any other bird. It's much larger than just about anything in Arkansas."
A week ago, a game and fish officer contacted Slater and told her someone shot an Eagle in Logan County, just north of Magazine. Slater spent the next couple of days trying to preserve the life of our country's symbol of strength and power. She says it suffered greatly, with two holes in its broken wing. "The humerus, which is the bone between the elbow and the shoulder, was shattered all the way through. He also had a hole in his radius which is between the wrist and the elbow on the top."
She medicated the eagle with antibiotics, pain killers and worked on getting it nutrients.
The bald eagle weighed five and a half pounds which is incredibly thin; most male eagles in our state weigh about nine to ten pounds. Despite Slater's best efforts, the bald eagle died Sunday. But Slater says this isn't the only one suffering the consequences from the shot. "They also caused the death of at least two nestlings, because at this time of year the female would be nesting and if she was sitting on eggs, then she would have to leave the eggs to go get food, normally the male does that."