Rehabilitated American Bald Eagle is ready for release

ROCKY POINT, NC (WWAY) — An American Bald Eagle is ready to spread her wings after a few months of recovering at the Cape Fear Raptor Center.

Veterinarians found two-year-old Yangchen on North Topsail Beach in October of last year. She was weak, unable to fly, and presented symptoms that may have been connected to heavy lead poisoning. That landed the eagle in Rocky Point where doctors rehabilitated her.

Yangchen is now very strong, flying well, and eating normal. Cape Fear Raptor Center founder Joni Gnyp says those are all signs that the apex predator is ready to return to the wild.

But this time, a GPS unit attached to her back will track Yangchen’s every move.

“Biologists can tell based on what the Eagles are doing, what other species are doing,” says Gnyp. “The whole ecosystem works in one big circle. She needs to get out there and make other eaglets when she becomes breeding age—which she will be in about three or four years.”

The GPS unit on Yangchen’s back will track her migration patterns and tell us more about what eagles do.

Yangchen will fly free Saturday at 8:30 a.m. That’s as long as her last bit of blood work comes back OK. The release happens across from the Rocky Point Animal Hospital and is open to the public.