Zoo's eaglet is placed in the wild

An eaglet hatched at the Philadelphia Zoo last month was placed yesterday with a wild family of bald eagles in Bucks County.

The eaglet's new home is with two other eaglets at an undisclosed location near Doylestown. It is the second time in 13 years that an eaglet hatched at the zoo has been fostered into a wild nest in cooperation with the state Game Commission.

Bill Larson, spokesman for the zoo, said the eaglet, whose sex is unknown, was hatched April 2 from an egg laid in February by Glory, one of the zoo's bald eagles. She and her partner, Ritz, are rehabilitated birds that cannot survive in the wild.

More than 170 pairs of bald eagles are nesting in Pennsylvania, said Doug Gross, Game Commission biologist. As recently as 1983, only three eagle nests remained in Pennsylvania.