An injured bald eagle that survived a nosedive into a rock-hard snow bank last spring is ready to be released back into the wilds of Valdez, according to Cindy Palmatier, director of avian care at the Bird Treatment and Learning Center (TLC) in Anchorage. The large female raptor became a media darling after surviving what experts say was most likely an ill-timed aerial mating ritual that claimed the life of the male.

“She’s not going to wait,” Palmatier said Monday.

The raptor, nicknamed Lois by TLC staff, has fully recovered and is getting too feisty to be kept in captivity, according to Palmatier.

Staff had planned to hold onto Lois until her rescuer, Valdez wildlife biologist Bob Benda, can be on-hand for the release in the coming weeks. However, Lois wants to go home now and Palmatier says they are worried the raptor could injure itself if it remains in captivity much longer.

Valdez sends a fair number of birds – mostly birds of prey – that get injured to TLC every year. The facility is a fully licensed bird rehabilitation center with the goal of returning birds back into the wild whenever possible. Many make it. Some however, cannot fully recover enough to survive in the wild. These birds are either housed for life at the center or re-homed to other bird sanctuaries. A few are just too sick or injured and die.

That was the fate of a golden eagle found injured and emaciated at the Glacier Campground in Valdez a week ago Wednesday.

Dave Bittner, a visiting wildlife biologist who has made a career out of banding golden eagles in the Lower 48 spotted the listless raptor on a bench at a campsite.

“I knew by the fact he was sitting on the bench that he wasn’t well,” said Bittner who is the executive director of Wildlife Research Institute located in Ramona, Calif.

He was able to approach and take the raptor in his arms very easily. He said the bird was obviously grossly underweight and was missing a talon from one of its feet. The group called Valdez police to ask for assistance. They in-turn called Benda, who hurried to the scene.

“It was the most docile bird,” Benda said. “He literally just gave it to me.”

“Oh my, that looks like a golden,” Palmatier says she thought to herself at her first look at the bird. “My next thought question was ‘What the heck was it doing in Valdez?’”

Sadly, porcupine quills were found festering inside the mouth of the golden eagle.

“There was one at the base of the tongue and one crossways in the throat,” Palmatier said.

The patient also showed signs of other recent wounds.

“The feet are incredibly beat up and lacerated,” in addition to its missing talon, Palmatier said before the bird died late Friday night.

“We did a necropsy on him,” Palmatier said Monday, “He was thin, he didn’t have any body fat.”

Despite the necropsy, a precise cause of death was not determined.

The bird had no internal or skeletal injuries and it had few parasites.

While golden eagles are not strangers to Valdez – Benda says there is a nesting pair within the city limits – most prefer to live in higher up in the mountains and they are not a familiar site like their cousins, the bald eagle.

“It’s kind of like CSI every time we get a bird in,” Palmatier said.

But unlike TV, sometimes the mystery does not get solved in real life.