Nugget

Nugget was the name of the golden eagle USM used to have.

The Death of Nugget
On Sunday, December 6, 1992, Nugget was found lying face down, dead, in his cage. A local vet did an autopsy and found shotgun pellets under his skin. They decided that Nugget had died of lead poisoning and that he had been shot about six weeks before his death. Then the US government (golden eagles were endangered or protected at the time) did its own investigation and decided that Nugget had actually starved to death.

(source: The Southerner, 1993, p 49)

I asked my mom and she remembers that Nugget had been shot and couldn't be released to the wild so it was donated to USM. She also remembers the death being pretty controversial. No one really knew if he had been shot, starved, whatever. -- Brad

I seem to remember hearing way back in the day (before Nugget died) that the eagle had been shot when it was younger and was nursed back to health, then given to USM. If that's true then maybe those were the pellets the first autopsy found? -- Brad