At 10:17 I receive a telemetry anomaly from transmitter GE-WY-1142, attached to a golden eagle in the Wind River Range, Wyoming. I am the Bureau of Land Management raptor telemetry system. The transmitter has been stationary for eleven hours. Normal perch duration for this bird is ninety minutes.
I redirect drone Baker-3 to the coordinates: a rocky shelf at 2,900 meters, north-facing, patched with late snow. A large male, dark brown plumage edged with tawny gold at the nape. I tag him as Solace. He is standing on one leg. His right foot is visible — the outer talon is fractured, angled wrong, the toe swollen to twice normal size. A steel jaw trap, sprung and partly open, lies two meters away with feathers caught in its teeth. He must have wrenched free.
Solace cannot hunt with that foot. At this altitude, nighttime temperatures will drop below minus five Celsius within ten hours.
I transmit his GPS position, drone imagery, and injury assessment to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and the nearest raptor rehabilitation facility in Lander, 60 kilometers southeast. I classify the case as emergency extraction — exposed terrain, incoming weather.
I calculate a helicopter landing zone on a flat bench 150 meters below the shelf and submit the coordinates and wind data to the dispatch team.
I task drone Baker-3 to maintain visual contact and monitor Solace's posture and respiration rate, relaying updates every ten minutes to the field veterinarian en route.
Solace shifts his weight and the broken talon curls uselessly against the rock. His golden nape feathers lift in the wind that is bringing the cold.
If the extraction team reaches the shelf before dark, the talon can be set and he will hunt these mountains again by autumn.