Wounded eagle flies back to Germany tonight

The lesser spotted eagle found with gunshot wounds in Birzebbuga on Sunday will be flown back home to Germany on an Air Malta flight tonight.

Sigmar, as the eagle has been named by the German press, will be flying to Frankfurt, from where it will be taken to the Veterinary Medicine Department of the University Berlin, where it will be examined and treated by Susanne Mueller, the resident lesser spotted eagle expert.

The German press has shown big interest in the story, especially after the Environment Minister for Brandenburg, Dietmar Woidtke condemned the shooting of the rare bird.

The eagle is suffering from a broken leg but as no x-rays have yet been taken it could not be determined whether it has internal injuries.

On arrival in Frankfurt, volunteers from the Committee Against Bird Slaughter will drive the bird to Berlin. "Air Malta were extremely helpful and agreed to fly Sigmar back without hesitation," the president of the Committee Against Bird Slaughter, Heinz Schwarze, said.

It is hoped the eagle will recover so that it could be taken to the Nature Protection Station at Woblitz where it was reared earlier this year, to be then reintroduced into the wild.

Goerg Lippert, who works in the species protection section of the Environment Department of Brandenburg, said studies of migration habits of lesser spotted eagles showed that some flew east towards the Bosphorus and then south into Africa via Israel. Some were also known to fly south directly over Italy, Malta and Libya.

The Federation for Hunting and Conservation has condemned the shooting of the bird. Yet, messages posted in a forum on the federation's own website expressed doubts over whether the bird had actually been shot here.