For the Birds Radio Program: Eagle Goes to School
What was a Bald Eagle doing at Ordean Junior High School?
Transcript
On November 14, I got a phone call from a teacher at Ordean Junior High School in Duluth. She told me there was a young Bald Eagle sitting on the soccer field. This was during the school day, and so the children were brought inside and they needed someone to come pick up the bird.
The Bald Eagle Protection Act prohibits me from handling wild eagles, so I instantly called Dave Evans, the bander at Hawk Ridge. He went over to the school, but as he approached the eagle flew away. It was this year’s bird, and so was apparently confused but healthy. The Duluth News-Tribune wrote a little note about the incident in their “Eh” column, and that seemed to be the end of it.
But the next day, after the little story appeared in the paper, that eagle decided to try another school, this time descending upon Congdon Elementary School, several blocks away from Ordean. Dave went there to see what was going on, this time with a big chunk of rabbit. And in zoomed the eagle, totally unafraid, and obviously expecting to be fed. Fortunately, the eagle came in close enough to be caught, and was brought down to the Raptor Center in St Paul.
The only explanation for this kind of behavior by a healthy eagle is that someone had raised it, or been feeding it from the time it fell out of a nest somewhere, and the bird had become imprinted on humans. I can really appreciate how someone would feel coming upon a baby eagle in trouble, and how delighted they would be if the eagle started recognizing them and even seeming to like them. But it’s against the law to tame them for good reason. A Bald Eagle’s talons are huge, powerful, and dangerous. If this bird had alighted on a child, not to injure but to beg for food, those talons could have caused serious injuries. In many rehab facilities, humans don’t need to handle baby birds of prey because some permanently injured birds willingly serve as foster mothers. If that eagle had been brought to Marge Gibson’s facility in Antigo, one of her Bald Eagle females would have raised it, and the bird wouldn’t have leamed to associate humans with food. It could have been released to a truly wild life, the way this majestic bird deserves.
Instead, it will probably be relegated to an educational facility where it will live out its days on display in confinement. Even the finest facility can’t compare with the wild for a bird whose whole being pulses with wildness. The Bald Eagle was selected as our national emblem because it so beautifully represents freedom and fierce defense of liberty. Humans are often responsible for the bad things that happen to eagles, from harassing parents at a nest to polluting their waters and chopping down their trees. But a truly compassionate person who found an eagle in trouble would respect that deep-set wildness and help the eagle by getting it to people who know how to preserve the bird’s wildness even as they treat it with expertise and compassion.