PRESCOTT ARIZONA REAL ESTATE – Eagle

Les Stukenberg/The Daily Courier Bob Fox, director of Wild at Heart — an animal rehabilitation center, releases “Dugas,” a 7-year-old male bald eagle at Watson Lake on Monday afternoon. Dugas was brought to the center at the end of March and treated over the past three months for high levels of lead, among other diseases. Dugas also was equipped with a solar satellite transmitter so members of the Arizona Game and Fish Department can monitor its travels. Brett Soldwedel/The Daily Courier Bob Fox, director of Wild at Heart, holds up “Dugas” before releasing him at Watson Lake on Monday afternoon.

By Joanna Dodder Nellans The Daily Courier

Prescott has a new bald eagle in town, although it remains to be seen how long he’ll stick around.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department decided to release a rehabilitated bald eagle at Watson Lake in Prescott Monday because the site has all the right ingredients – it’s not far from where he was born, its water attracts plenty of prey, it offers good perching, it had an elevated spot for the release that’s easy to reach, and it’s not over 100 degrees like it is in Phoenix right now.

“If he finds a lot of food he may stay here, or he may move on,” said Ken Jacobson, bald eagle management coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. “At 7 years old, he’s been around and he probably knows this area.”

And at 7 years old, the male eagle has a great chance to survive, Jacobson added. Bald eagles usually live to the age of 17 or 18 in Arizona, and biologists continue to track a 32-year-old breeding female that lives near Alamo Lake.

Bald eagles are not an uncommon sight at Watson, which attracts hundreds of ducks that make a great meal for the eagles. This new male is visually separable by the blue band on his left leg and GPS transmitter on his back.

Government biologists know he was born in 2003 near the confluence of the Verde and Salt rivers, because they attached a transmitter to him as a fledgling. He has spent most of his life in Arizona, with summers in Oregon.

By the time his life was in danger, the transmitter was no longer working. Lucky for him, a rancher happened to see him struggling on the ground on Dugas Road, just east of Interstate 17 in Yavapai County.

A Game and Fish officer took the eagle to the non-profit Wild at Heart raptor rehabilitation center in Cave Creek. The next day, a vet diagnosed lead poisoning and trichomoniasis.

The bird had three times the normal amount of lead in his system, explained Wild at Heart owner Bob Fox. Careless human activity is to blame.

The eagle either ate a land-based animal killed with lead bullets, or a fish with a lead weight in it.

To avoid accidentally killing raptors, biologists ask the public to use non-toxic bullets, bury gut piles after hunting and stop using lead weights on fishing line.

“Unfortunately, it’s a real common occurrence in bald eagles,” Fox said of lead poisoning deaths.

The eagle spent more than two months recovering at Wild at Heart, eventually moving into flight pens where he could build strength at catching prey.

“He just got into a little trouble and needs a second chance,” Jacobson said.

Game and Fish biologists fitted the eagle with a new solar-powered transmitter, and now he’s the state’s first adult bald eagle with a satellite GPS transmitter.

“This is the first time biologists will have the opportunity to track a non-breeding adult bald eagle in Arizona and learn more about its year-round habits, migrations and possible future breeding activity,” Jacobson said.

The public will be able to follow his movements later too, by visiting the Southwest Bald Eagle Management Committee website at www.swbemc.org. Video of his rehabilitation also will be available on the Wild at Heart website at www.wildatheartowls.org.

Fox joined Jacobson and other Game and Fish officials at the release event Monday.

Wearing heavy gloves, Fox carried the eagle to an overlook spot and threw him into the air. The eagle flew out over the lake, circled back and landed at the top of a piñon tree below the release site to hang out several minutes and look around. Then he flew out over the lake and out of sight into the maze of Granite Dells.

“A release is always exciting, but especially a bald eagle as a symbol of freedom,” Fox remarked.