Sukhoi Su-27 Flankers of the Chinese Air Force used the Konya facilities to exercise with Turkish F-4E Phantoms between 20 September and 4 October 2010. Turkey does not appear to regard these exercises as part of the official Anatolian Eagle series,[9] despite the media reporting them as such. U.S. officials worried that the exercises would allow the Chinese access to Western technology and an understanding of NATO tactics.
Capt. Hans Buckwalter speaks after receiving the 2010 Koren Kolligian Jr. Trophy June 29, 2011, during a ceremony in the Pentagon. Captain Buckwalter was awarded the trophy, which recognizes outstanding achievement in airmanship and flying proficiency, for his successful landing of an F-15E Strike Eagle with a crippled left landing gear, during a flight April 8, 2010. (U.S. Air Force photo)
X-force EAGLE 2010
Capt. Hans Buckwalter was named the 2010 recipient of the Koren Kolligian Jr. Trophy June 29, 2011, during a ceremony in the Pentagon. The award recognizes outstanding feats of airmanship by an aircrew member who by extraordinary skill, exceptional alertness, ingenuity or proficiency, averts or minimizes the seriousness of an aircraft accident in terms of injury, loss of life, aircraft or property damage. (U.S. Air Force photo)
Eagle Vision provides rapid, high-quality imagery, such as this image taken in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, that can be used by disaster response workers. Officials from NASA and the U.S. Department of the Interior honored the Electronic Systems Center-managed Eagle Vision program with the 2010 William T. Pecora award during a Pentagon ceremony Feb. 15, 2011. (Eagle Vision image)
The Common Council adopted the current Ward boundaries on February 21, 2013, as proposed by the latest appointed Reapportionment Commission. These boundaries have been adjusted to best represent protected groups and community of interests per the 2010 U.S. Decennial Census.
Jackson, WyomingMeghan Warren grabbed the bald eagle's legs with thick leather gloves to secure its powerful talons. With her other hand, she pinned the bird's wings before they could unfold to their six-foot span.
As Warren slowly removed the ailing eagle from an oxygen chamber at the animal hospital where she worked, it suddenly awakened from a stupor. It snapped its yellow hooked beak, puncturing her right cheek. Blood trickled down her face.
It was a surprising move for a bird in such poor shape. Less than 36 hours earlier, this eagle was too weak to hold up its white-feathered head. It arrived at the Teton Raptor Center slumped on its breast, wings drooped: another casualty of lead poisoning.
This was the third eagle in a little over a month to arrive in such a feeble state. During Wyoming's big game hunting season, virtually all eagles have lead in their system from scavenging bullet-riddled carrion. A half dozen or so lead-poisoned ones make it to the rehab center every year, but no one knows how many die unseen in the backcountry.
The death of one of them a few weeks earlier still haunted Warren. It was a female, the largest bald eagle Warren had ever handled in her three years at the Teton Raptor Center. She had rescued the eagle from the snow on a ranch along the Hoback River, then administered injections of medicines and chelating agents and force-fed it food and liquids under the instructions of a veterinarian.
Bert Tuckey was racing to the dentist when he noticed the bald eagle sitting in the snow beside his dirt driveway. His wife, Leigh Tuckey, saw the bird too, as she drove by that February morning on her way to a quilting bee. They suspected something wasn't quite right, but neither had time to investigate.
When Bert Tuckey returned mid-afternoon that wintry day, he was alarmed to see the eagle in the same spot, hunched over on the ground, a few paces from the dirt road on his ranch. "If he was a healthy eagle, that sucker would have bounded up and been gone," Tuckey recalled.
He drove slowly past the eagle to his house, where he telephoned the local Wyoming game warden but reached his voice mail. Then he phoned a veterinarian who runs a small animal clinic in Dubois. It's the closest town to their ranch, about 20 miles away. Bring the bird in, the vet told him.
As the wiry rancher approached on foot, the eagle stood up and flapped its wings against the ground in an awkward attempt to fly. The eagle rowed itself forward until it ran into a wire fence. Tuckey scooped up the bird with the sheet and pushed it headfirst into the dog crate, snapping the door shut.
Baker had handled a lot of bald eagles in his 13 years as a warden in Wyoming. Some were struck by vehicles, others collided with fences or power lines, some were shot, some were poisoned, and many were killed or sickened by unknown causes.
America's national bird is a frequent sight in this rugged landscape in the shadow of the Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. An estimated 200 nesting pairs make Wyoming their home, with even more migrating through. Every fall and winter, eagles converge here to take advantage of a feeding bonanza: the piles of entrails and other offal left behind by deer, elk, and antelope hunters.
Soon this goateed lawman, wearing his cowboy hat, sidearm, and official red shirt, was transporting the eagle up and over the Continental Divide toward Wilson. His Wyoming Game and Fish Department truck passed the jagged Breccia Cliffs, and crossed the snow-packed 9,584-foot pass to reach Moran Junction on the other side.
He had arranged for Kyle Lash, a Jackson-based warden, to meet him there, a halfway point, in the middle of Grand Teton National Park. They transferred the incapacitated eagle, and Lash arrived at the Teton Raptor Center shortly before dark.
As soon as she lifted the eagle out of the crate, Warren suspected lead poisoning. The raptor had the classic symptoms. Instead of strutting, chest out and scrappy, it had rounded shoulders and its wings drooped under their own weight. It had trouble lifting its head. Bright green, bile-stained diarrhea soiled its white tail feathers.
The eagle had probably been contaminated with lead by eating the entrails of a deer or elk shot by hunters. Although lead shot was banned in the United States for waterfowl hunting in 1991, lead continues to be legal for other hunting ammunition. A lead-core bullet, unlike those made of solid copper, explodes upon impact, shooting dozens and sometimes hundreds of small fragments as far as 18 inches from the entry wound, according to x-ray analyses.
No one has estimated how many raptors are killed by lead poisoning every year. But lethal concentrations were found in 21 percent of 168 eagles found dead along the Upper Mississippi River. In Washington state, more than half of the 96 bald and golden eagles admitted at a rehab center had levels of lead considered toxic. And in Wyoming, 68 of 71 bald eagles tested for a 2012 study had detectable lead. The average during hunting season was 96 micrograms per deciliter, about ten times the usual background levels.
Warren knew the odds were against this eagle. Nearly three-quarters of the 22 lead-poisoned birds that had reached the small Teton Raptor Center in the past few years either died or were so far gone they had to be euthanized. But this was a mature male, its white-feathered head and tail indicating it was at least five years old, perhaps decades older, and so far it had survived what could have been a lethal dose.
Jellen mixed a small capillary tube of blood with a reagent and put a drop on a sensor loaded into a lead-testing machine. It takes 180 seconds for the results. Warren carried the eagle to a separate room and laid it on a table beneath an x-ray machine. They put on protective vests and were taking x-rays when the blood-testing machine beeped, signaling that the results were ready.
Sure enough, the eagle had elevated lead levels in its blood, 37.5 micrograms per deciliter. The levels were likely on the downslope after the eagle ingested a big dose because the metal had been absorbed by its tissues, including its brain, and was headed for bone. The toxic dose of lead for eagles is disputed among experts; a concentration of 10 micrograms per deciliter in blood is considered background, while 20 to 60 is generally considered a sign of poisoning. Given its dire symptoms, the standard of care called for immediate treatment.
They called Dan Forman, a veterinarian in Jackson, on his cell phone to report that they had another eagle with high lead levels. The x-rays didn't find any obvious broken bones or any lead fragments, which show up as ghostly white on x-rays, in the eagle's flesh or gastrointestinal tract.
Forman, originally from Long Island, New York, developed a passion for avian and exotic medicine a quarter century ago, while attending Tufts University veterinary school near Boston. He donates his time to the raptor center, examining about 80 injured and sick hawks, owls, eagles, and other raptors last year amid his usual caseload of dogs and cats. Only about half of the birds survive.
Unlike household pets, eagles must be rehabilitated to the point that they stand a reasonable chance of survival in the wild. If they remain compromised and the raptor center cannot find a zoo or other federally approved educational facility, Forman is required by law to euthanize them.
Like Warren, Forman was frustrated about losing the two other eagles to lead poisoning. The big female had died a month earlier in his oxygen chamber after sudden onset of pneumonia, likely brought on by inhaling a bit of straw or other irritant into her lungs.
This time, he wanted to step up treatment and intervene in a more aggressive way. So after doing a quick exam and taking another blood sample, Forman pushed and twisted a 3-inch human spinal needle into the eagle's longest leg bone. The concept: The catheter would speed up the absorption of medicines that treat lead poisoning.
Once the catheter was taped to its leg, the eagle was placed in an oxygen chamber. A drip tube was threaded through a small hole in the chamber to reach a hanging bag of solution. The fluids began to flow through the tube, along with an anti-inflammatory medicine, an antibiotic, and a chelating agent that binds with lead in the bloodstream to form a stable complex that gets expelled in the bird's watery stool. Over time, it flushes lead out of the blood. 2ff7e9595c
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