A state trooper's effort to rescue a second injured eagle from the side of a Twin Cities highway did not have the same happy ending as the first rescue mission.
For the second time in about 13 months, Paul Kingery removed an ailing bald eagle from the edge of a busy interstate in Eagan.
Kingery helped the eagle April 16 along Interstate 35E near Pilot Knob Road in Eagan, where the nation's symbol was down on the shoulder, the patrol said in a statement posted Sunday on Facebook.
And just like the first aviary encounter, Kingery bundled up the eagle in a jacket and drove the bird to the University of Minnesota Raptor Center in St. Paul. But while Kingery's first effort led to a full recovery, this eagle succumbed to its injuries.
"The eagle was euthanized," said Paige Calhoun, a public relations coordinator for the university's Academic Health Center, which oversees the Raptor Center.
Calhoun said the eagle had "severe internal trauma and fractures in its right leg."
On March 20, 2016, again on a Sunday and in Eagan, Kingery rescued a full-grown eagle on the side of Interstate 494 near Pilot Knob Road. That was about 2¾ miles to the north, as the eagle flies, of Kingery's most recent encounter and just to the east of the Minnesota River.
But no, Patrol Lt. Tiffani Nielson said, it was not the same eagle.
