June 11, 2008—More than three years after a poacher shot off her upper beak, a bald eagle named Beauty (pictured above, before and after her operation) has been outfitted with a new one.

A team attached an artificial beak to the 15-pound (7-kilogram) eagle in mid-May, improving her appearance and, more important, helping her grasp food.

"The eagle has landed, and she has a beak," engineer Nate Calvin said after the surgery. Calvin spent 200 hours designing the complex prosthetic appendage.

The nylon-composite beak is only a temporary fix, designed to nail down precise measurements. A final beak made of tougher material will be created and attached later.

(Related photo: Green Sea Turtle to Get Fake Flipper [February 29, 2008])

Although the the bird's saviors don't plan to release her back into the wild, the artificial beak is key to Beauty's survival.

A wild eagle that must be hand-fed by humans would eventually have to be euthanized, especially when its life span could run four more decades, said Jane Fink Cantwell, who took Beauty to a raptor recovery center in Idaho two years ago.

— Nicholas K. Geranios, Associated Press

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