Credit: SWNS / Fort Worth Zoo
A magnificent eagle at risk of losing its beak to infection is now well on the mend after specialist vets formed a new one - on a 3D printer.
27-year-old Harpy eagle Queeny was suffering from erosion on the upper part of her beak, which could have led her to lose it nd make it impossible for her to feed.
Vets at Fort Worth Zoo, Texas, USA, discovered she was suffering from a bone infection and while they could treat this, could not restore the erosion.
A magnificent eagle at risk of losing its beak to infection is now well on the mend after specialist vets formed a new one - on a 3D printer.
27-year-old Harpy eagle Queeny was suffering from erosion on the upper part of her beak, which could have led her to lose it nd make it impossible for her to feed.
Vets at Fort Worth Zoo, Texas, USA, discovered she was suffering from a bone infection and while they could treat this, could not restore the erosion.
Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC]
00:05 So the first time that we examined the harpy eagle,
00:09 we noticed that the upper part of her beak had sort of eroded away.
00:14 We realized that the infection actually had
00:18 eaten away some of the bone in her upper beak.
00:20 We decided that the best thing for her was to make a prosthetic to fill that spot in,
00:29 so that she couldn't catch it on anything and potentially injure it more.
00:33 So we reached out to a group at the University of South Florida,
00:39 who had recently had a news story about doing a prosthetic for
00:44 a hornbill that had part of its bill removed related to cancer.
00:50 So we reached out to them, and they were very excited to help us.
00:53 So we had to get the infection under control first,
00:56 cuz we didn't wanna put a prosthetic over potential infection.
00:59 And then we had to actually take the eagle for a CT scan, so
01:02 that they could see the intricate details of the beak and
01:06 the face surrounding it, so that we made sure it was a really good fit.
01:10 So the morning of her prosthetic placement, she came in back to the hospital,
01:15 and we repeated anesthesia.
01:16 The beak itself looked great, there was no sign of infection.
01:19 So we cleaned it up, and then we applied an adhesive to keep it on.
01:25 And it went really smoothly, we had to wait a little bit for it to dry.
01:29 But otherwise, yeah, the procedure went really well, and
01:32 she seems comfortable with it.
01:33 [MUSIC]
01:36 [BLANK_AUDIO]