Book Launch to Feature Live Raptors

Jane Veltkamp, president and executive

director of Birds of Prey Northwest

and coauthor of “Beauty and the Beak,”

with the book’s subject.

The library will host a book launch for “Beauty and the Beak,” a children’s nonfiction book that shares the story of the effort to help a bald eagle that lost its beak in an illegal shooting, Saturday, Sept. 30, at 10 a.m. in the Community Room.
The free program will also feature live birds from Birds of Prey Northwest (BPN) in St. Maries.
Written by Deborah Lee Rose and Jane Veltkamp, BPN president and executive director, “Beauty and the Beak” relates through words and pictures how the eagle was rescued and received a pioneering 3D-printed prosthetic beak. During the months of engineering and surgery the eagle was hand fed and provided water before she could again feed and drink on her own.
This book will resonate with stories of other animals endangered or in need, and with stories of humans, from young children to military veterans, in need of prosthetic limbs, who are being given new lives with state-of-the-art devices.
The book includes expanded information about bald eagles as a top predator species, their near extinction in most of the U.S., their successful reintroduction back into the wild, and efforts to conserve this critical raptor species today.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase for signing.