Young peregrine falcon from Pitt's Cathedral of Learning nest dies after injury

Red, a young peregrine falcon that hatched in the nest on top of Pitt's Cathedral of Learning this spring, died weeks after he was found injured in Oakland.

Red, named because of the colored tape on his band issued by the Pennsylvania Game Commission, was one of four chicks that hatched in the nest this year. There's a livestream camera on the Cathedral of Learning that lets viewers watch Carla and Ecco raise their chicks every spring. 

Red was first admitted to the Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh after he had been found injured in Oakland shortly after leaving the nest. 

As Red was slowly recovering, HARP and the National Aviary said he was transported to Tamarack Wildlife Center, which specializes in treating birds of prey, like the eaglet that had swallowed a fishhook at U.S. Steel's Irvin Plant in West Mifflin. There, Red's care team tried to understand and resolve several medical issues and worked to line up a licensed falconer who could give him the life skills he needed to be released into the wild. 

However, HARP and the aviary said Red never became medically stable enough. Tamarack Wildlife Center got special state permissions to transfer him to Cornell University's Janet L. Swanson Wildlife Hospital, where Red could receive "state-of-the-art" medical and surgical care. 

Although Red initially showed signs of improvement, at the end of August, his condition quickly deteriorated in a matter of days, and he died. A necropsy showed chronic severe respiratory issues that Red likely would have never been able to survive, no matter what kind of treatment he got. 

"Although Red could not be saved, our hearts are warmed by the many organizations and individuals who worked together to help him," HARP and the National Aviary said in a statement.