Eagles changed life at Virginia wildlife hospital

WAYNESBORO

On Tuesday, the third and final young eagle from the Norfolk Botanical Garden will get a second chance to swap security for the wind beneath her wings.

But for now, NX sits on her perch, just a big brown bird with big yellow feet, and no interest in leaving the nest.

She has no clue how much it matters, no idea of the link that technology has forged between her and humans, and no inkling that she has brought out the best and worst in them.

At the Wildlife Center of Virginia, where NX eats, sleeps and poops in oblivion, time is divided into two eras:

Before Eagles and After Eagles.

Their arrival, said Amanda Nicholson, a director at the wildlife center, "was the end of life as we knew it."

Her name is supposed to remind us that she's wild: NX, the ID letters on her leg band, instead of something warm and fuzzy.

Animals awaiting freedom don't get cutesy names at the center, one of the few wildlife hospitals in the nation that accepts all creatures - from snakes to bears - including the three eaglets whose mother collided with a US Airways jet over Norfolk in April.

"Orphaned, gunshot, poisoned, run over, electrocuted, torn up by cats, whatever can happen to an animal, we see it and treat it," said Ed Clark, who helped found the hospital in 1982.

A native Virginian with salt-and-pepper hair, Clark has devoted much of his 60 years to conservation - a resume filled with activism and accolades. From 2000 to 2004, he even hosted his own TV show - "Wildlife Emergency" - filmed at the center, aired weekly on Animal Planet, and still broadcast in some countries.

"I saw myself on a hotel TV in Venezuela not too long ago," Clark said. "Spanish was coming out of my mouth. It was kind of surreal."

More than 55,000 animals have been cared for at the center, located on 20 leafy acres at the foot of the mountains outside Waynesboro. None has caused as much commotion as the NBG eagles - as they've come to be known - or stirred as much passion. Donations to the center have skyrocketed, but so has scrutiny and criticism.

"Who are these people?" Clark wondered. "And where do they find the time?"

They're the Eagle Nation, a family of far-flung strangers united by a wildlife camera, a cyberwindow into a once-hidden world. Mounted high in a pine tree, its images piped across the Web, the camera allows millions to peer right into the heart of a massive nest that's used every year by a pair of bald eagles at the botanical garden.

Spend enough time on the camera and it's nearly impossible not to get attached. This spring's clutch of three fuzzy chicks became instant Internet darlings. Hearts ached across the world the day their mother didn't come home. Mourners made pilgrimages to the garden, some weeping at the base of the big tree.

When the eaglets were removed from the nest, the camera - and its multitude of eyes - followed them to the wildlife center.

Traffic on the center's website exploded, from 18,000 visitors the entire month of March to 30,000 in a single day when the eaglets arrived on April 27.

"It shut down our website," Clark said, "and clogged up the local telephone company."

At the post office, touchingly misspelled letters flooded in from kids across the country: "Dear eaglets, I'm so sorry yours mother is did ..."

As the chicks began to mature, around 150,000 "eagleholics" became regulars, glued to the camera for hours at a time, a microscope that was unrelenting. The staff's every move was observed and endlessly critiqued in online comments - from the food the eaglets were being fed to how much water was placed in their tubs.

"I determined she was uncomfortable in the enclosure with the eagles and wanted out quickly," ruled one commenter when a staffer appeared too hasty with the hose.

On the flip side: contributions. Donations are the lifeblood of the center's $1 million annual budget. Clark figures the NBG eaglets have drawn in an extra $300,000 - money that can heal a lot of cracked turtle shells, or owls injured in chimneys, or possums hit by cars, or rabbits chewed up by lawn mowers.

Eighty percent of the donations came from outside Virginia - and don't forget the other gifts: brownies from Vermont, chocolates from North Carolina, smoked sausages from New York.

"I think we've all gained about 10 pounds," Clark said.

One fan sent him a pair of eagle slippers. Five hundred sent him birthday cards. A woman in Florida made eagle scarves for every staff member.

Spats did break out within the Eagle Nation - disagreements about fundraising or what might be best for the birds. As the release date approached in July, emotions erupted over the center's decision to outfit one of the eaglets with a 3-ounce tracking transmitter.

"At first, everyone wanted it," Clark said. "They were like, 'We've got to know what happens to our babies!' But then a very small but extremely vocal group started saying 'No transmitter! She'll never be free!' And they've called us everything from animal abusers to cosmic sinners to voyeurs."

Clark chose NX to carry the gear. Of the three siblings, she seemed the most likely to survive. Nearly 70 percent of young eagles don't make it in the wild, and transmitters run $3,000.

"She had no minuses," Clark said, unlike her sister and brother. One had spent energy recovering from lead poisoning, the other from a chipped shin bone.

But on release day, when a thousand people trekked from 23 states and Canada to witness the eagles fly free over the James River, NX was the only one who didn't vanish into the blue sky. Her handlers had to scramble into the underbrush to retrieve her off the ground and trundle her back to the wildlife center.

Critics said the transmitter was too heavy for the 8-pound bird. Video soon surfaced on Facebook, showing biologists attaching the harness to NX right before her release, forcing her to spread her wings wide for a proper fit.

"The title was 'NX BEING TORTURED,' " Clark huffed. "Can you believe that? Here we are with countless experts - people who have devoted their entire lives to wildlife - and we get these nasty comments from people who've never even taken a biology class. They'll burn you at the stake, and they're out there with a match looking for my house."

With an extra month of nurturing behind her, NX might be ready. Vets at the center decided she's just a "late bloomer" - preferring the safety of the nest long after her siblings soared into adulthood. But lately, she's been acting more mature, making grown-up calls instead of juvenile sounds, and standing up for herself instead of acting submissive.

On Tuesday morning, she'll be driven back to the banks of James to begin "life as she should know it," Clark said.

When NX flies away - if she flies away - the After Eagles era at the wildlife center will go on.

Animals will continue to arrive from across Virginia - abandoned fawns, emaciated foxes, tiny squirrels blown out of trees by hurricanes.

But most, Clark said, "won't come with 150,000 friends."

Joanne Kimberlin, (757) 446-2338, joanne.kimberlin@pilotonline.com