When fully grown, the bald eagle weighs up to 10 pounds and has a wing span of seven feet. But even an endangered national symbol starts small, and, like Hank, hatched May 2 at a San Diego Zoo facility, depends on its keepers for food.
Zoo officials had high hopes for the female hatchling, named for a keeper who died a few years ago. The first bald eagle born at the zoo in 32 years, Hank had not yet hatched when she was rescued from her parents, who had already destroyed one egg. This summer Hank was to be set free on Santa Catalina Island.
Although keepers fed Hank fish and chicken pieces with the help of a makeshift hand puppet, Hank weakened, and on Mother's Day she died.
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