According to an AP report, a bald eagle named Beauty will soon be receiving an artificial beak from a team of Idaho volunteers.

Over the last two years, biologist Jane Fink Cantwell has been working to assemble a team to design and build a new beak for Beauty. The 7-year-old bald eagle lost almost all of her upper beak after she was shot several years ago.

Beauty was found scavenging in an Alaskan landfill in 2005, but without her upper beak she cannot clutch or rip food. She spent two years at a bird recovery center in Anchorage while researchers waited for a new beak to grow. However, the new beak never came, and two years of hand feeding the eagle exhausted the recovery center’s resources.

In 2007, Cantwell obtained permits and transported the bald eagle to her Birds of Prey Northwest ranch in Idaho. The prosthetic beak, made of a nylon-composite material, will be glued to Beauty’s existing beak. However, because of the lack of precedent, raptor experts disagree about the likelihood of the prosthetic beak’s success. And even if it proves to be durable, Beauty will never again be able to hunt freely in the wild.

To learn more about raptors — a group that includes eagles, hawks, falcons, and other birds of prey — check out Raptor Force on Nature Online. A strong beak is not the only thing that makes raptors effective aerial killing machines. Raptors have also mastered the art of soaring, and they have the sharpest vision of all animals. In fact, raptors are so specialized for hunting in flight that engineers have been inspired by their tactics to create the latest fighter jet technology.