Zookeepers at the Dakota Zoo didn't go long without an injured bald eagle to nurture.

An immature bald eagle, grounded with a broken wing, arrived on March 24, less than two weeks after zookeepers released another immature bald eagle that had recovered from a badly bruised wing.

Any rescued eagle is the good news.

The bad news is the injury may be too severe for this eagle to be set free after it recovers.

X-rays revealed a compound fracture of its right wing, assistant zoo director Rod Fried said Tuesday. "We sutured it up and splinted it, and that's where it is today."

Other than the broken wing, the young eagle appears to be healthy, Fried said, adding that it's eating well and looks alert. Zookeepers are assessing it weekly.

Fried described the break as "Bad. We will have to see what happens when it heals."

To be a candidate for release, an injured raptor has to be pronounced 100 percent able to survive in the wild, Fried said.

The rescue began March 23 when Gene Masse, a district game warden with the state Game and Fish Department in New Rockford, received a call from a city worker about a downed eagle near the city dump.

After spotting it, Masse donned leather gloves and approached. The eagle flapped off, and Masse ran after it until he caught up.

"It lay on its back, with its mouth open in its defensive posture, and I grabbed it by its legs and picked it up," Masse said.

He put the eagle in a box he keeps on hand, but not before suffering a scratched finger, despite the leather gloves, after the eagle caught him with a talon.

"It's just a minor scratch," he said. "I let go and it lunged at me and got me on the finger. Next time, I'll have heavier gloves."

Masse handed off the eagle to U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologists in Devils Lake. The USFWS is the agency responsible for overseeing - among other species - the protected bald eagle, which is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Cami Dixon, a wildlife biologist with the USFWS's Devils Lake Wetland Management District Complex, takes up the tale: "It was feisty," she said, explaining that it again tried to use its talons to thwart the transfer from Masse's box to her pet carrier.

The wing was in rough shape, she said. "Bones and tendons were exposed." With help from local folks experienced with broken wings, they got the eagle stabilized for the trip to Bismarck.

Dixon speculates the eagle hit a power line, "and then hit the ground pretty hard."

In Jamestown, Dixon handed off the eagle - still inside the pet carrier - to another USFWS wildlife biologist who was heading to Bismarck. "We were avoiding those talons at all costs," she said.

Roger Collins, of the USFWS Bismarck office, who was in Jamestown for a meeting, dropped off the eagle at the Dakota Zoo.

Dixon and Fried estimate the eagle to be about 3 years old - too young to have the white head so identifiable on America's symbol.

Fried said this bald eagle is the only eagle undergoing treatment at the zoo.

For him, that's a good thing: "I always like to think the less (eagles) we have, the better they are doing in the wild."

(Reach reporter Richard Hinton at 250-8256 or outdoors@bismarcktribune.net.)