Raptor Center releases 6 birds into wild

The University of Minnesota's Raptor Center says it saw a spike in the number of birds brought to its clinic this summer.

Executive director Julia Ponder says in August and September the center took in about 40 more than its usual average of 300 birds.

Six of them were released into the wild on Saturday at the Carpenter Nature Center in Hastings while thousands of spectators watched.

Ponder says nearly all their birds need rehabilitation because they had some kind of interaction with humans.

"Whether it be flying into buildings, being hit by a car, a lot of toxicities and things they eat from toxins we put in the environment," Ponder said. "For instance, the eagle we released had scavenged on a calf that had been euthanized and left in a field and so the bird got secondary poisoning, and without our treatment, would have died."

Ponder says one of the birds released Saturday was hatched on the Wells Fargo building in Bloomington.

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