Eagles Away
Releasing a mass of multicolored helium balloons as part of public celebrations is poor form. The balloons look gorgeous, but we now realize they're litter in the making--sometimes dangerous litter at that, since curious animals may eat the deflated remnants when they descend to earth or sea.
To celebrate Earth Day this year, the citizens of Sitka were able to incorporate a splendid replacement for a balloon launch: they released bald eagles.
Sitka is home for the Alaska Raptor Rehabilitation Center, and bald eagles are the center's specialty. Eagle releases are nothing new to center personnel; they see successful freeing of these great birds as their chief reason for existing. Over the decade the center has been working with ill and injured raptors, they've retumed over 60 healed eagles to the wild, including a dozen this spring alone. Other eagles, beyond rehabilitation for one reason or another, have gone to zoos and captive breeding programs Outside.
One of the more unusual reasons for impossible rehabilitation is exemplified by the center's mascot, a young eagle named Buddy. (The center assigns numbers to its birds-Buddy is officially BE88-17--but the personalities and peculiarities of the eagles inevitably demand names as well.) Buddy had been raised by people, which is illegal; perhaps for that reason, they abandoned him. For Buddy, it was too late. He had imprinted on humans; he was a kind of fractious adolescent with feathers. He's now undergoing training somewhat like that given hunting hawks since the Middle Ages, learning to respond to whistle signals and to sit on a gloved--heavily gloved--hand. He has a lifetime career with the center ahead of him, as what the center newsletter calls an "educational raptor."
The educational part of the center's program offers visitors a chance to see and photograph eagles at close range and to hear a brief talk on raptors and rehabilitation procedures. The eagles with which visitors can get up close and personal are birds like Buddy or Frosty, an adult female that came to the center with gunshot wounds so severe that part of her wing had to be amputated. Birds with a good chance of returning to the wild are given enough privacy so they do not become accustomed to humans.
Although the center is capable of applying sophisticated veterinary medicine to its raptors, often the first problem new patients have is severe dehydration. Intravenously if necessary, by mouth if possible, the birds receive a standard electrolyte solution. (I thought of athletes guzzling Gatorade when the volunteers were explaining this.) Next phase may include what's known as an "eagle milkshake," with an egg, a protein supplement originally designed for dogs, cod liver oil, an eighth of a high-quality human-style vitamin tablet, and more rehydrating solution. Four ounces of that makes a meal for an adult bald eagle.
Although visitors get a sense of the Alaska Raptor Rehabilitation Center as a rather small place, talking to the staff or to center chief Jerry Deppa gives a slightly different picture. The center then seems to involve nearly all of Sitka. The public portion is housed in the former Islands Community College building, property of the University of Alaska Southeast. Some work goes on in facilities loaned by Sheldon Jackson College, just downhill from center headquarters. Center patients have been known to turn up in the local hospital--the center has no X-ray equipment of its own, but the local medical (and veterinary) community has been very supportive of its work. A local tour company runs busloads of visitors to the center when the cruise ships are in town, and often those visitors buy memberships to help support the center's work.
To me, at least, it seems like good work indeed. The center is doing pioneering work in raptor health and rehabilitation and making a valuable contribution in public information about these great aerial hunters. Balloons are pretty, true, but for a well-decorated sky, I'll take the wings of eagles every time.
