They restore essential flight feathers on the wing and tail through “imping,” a remarkable technique in use since the thirteenth century in birds used for falconry. “We clip the damaged feather near the base, leaving a hollow keratin sheath,” explains Pierce. A matching feather molted from a donor bird is cut to length and inserted into the sheath with a tiny keratin dowel and then superglued to keep it in place. “If all goes according to plan,” she says, “the imped feather serves as a good replacement for the original feather until the bird molts it naturally, dropping the imped feather and
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