Papa the bald eagle had already lost a wing, and he was losing his right eagle eye to a cataract--until the surgeons stepped in.
At the Ellen Trout Zoo in Lufkin, Texas, there is a male American bald eagle called Papa. Papa couldn’t survive in the wild; over a decade ago, a human with a gun left him with a wing missing. But he seemed to be a happy enough eagle until a few years ago, when he began having trouble with his right eye. In the beginning we chose not to do anything about it, says zoo veterinarian John Wood. After all, he’s not like a bird in the wild that needs perfect vision to survive. Earlier this year, though, he began keeping that eye closed and tilting his head to one side. The eye appeared to be giving him trouble.
Wood and zoo director Gordon Henley called in ...
