Injured D.C. Snowy Owl Gets “New” Wing | National Geographic

this bird was sent to us from Washington
DC
specifically for our expertise in
replacing damaged feathers and that
process is called imping it’s an age-old
process that falconers created hundreds
of years ago and we’ve of course adapted
it and used a little bit more modern
tools and technology to get the job done
so basically how imping works is that
feather shafts are hollow and so you can
use that to your advantage to insert a
pin into the part of the shaft that
remains on the bird and then into the
shaft of a new feather that you want to
insert so it kind of connects them in a
pin like fashion and so what we use is
bamboo bamboo is like the connector that
connects the new feather to the shaft
that remains on the bird and then we
Whittle it so that it fits nice and snug
in the feather shaft and then we glue it
in at the end and basically these
feathers that I’ve emp’d will stay in
the bird until it goes into a natural
mold and they will be just as functional
allowing the bird to fly and catch food
and do everything it needs to do to
survive