Trip to the Wild Life Centre

Brian the bald eagle at the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre. Victoria and Rosalie went there for a school trip.

Recovery Success Stories

Brian, the eagle named after the dentist who gave of his time to help this eagle, was brought to the centre by volunteers from Rory’s Refuge in Tofino. Apparently residents of Tofino heard a gun shot and saw a truck driving away. They found the bird and quickly took it to Rory’s refuge where it was then transported to North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre in Errington, BC
The shot blew away most of his upper beak, leaving just the tip, which remained attached to his skull by a thin piece of cartilage. Some veterinarians suggest that Campbell put Brian down but Campbell persevered, and slowly the bird started to recover.
Campbell, believing that where there’s a will, there’s a way, alerted the local newspaper asking if there might be a dentist in the area prepared to give Brian a new beak. That’s when Dr. Brian Andrews from Nanaimo, BC offered his services.
Andrews took an exact mould and then built a wax model of it for the dental technician, Fred Leak from Victoria, to work with.
When the mould was ready, Leak constructed a permanent prosthesis tinted yellow to match the rest of Brian’s beak.

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