By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Alaska Raptor Center had a busy weekend, picking up a total of six dead or seriously injured eagles.
“Most of the ones we’ve been getting have been very, very thin, not doing well,” said Jen Cedarleaf, Raptor Center avian director. “It’s that time of year when food is hard to find. Or one eagle will find food, and they start chasing each other, running into buildings, and power lines, not paying attention.”
Four of the six picked up this weekend were dead when ARC staff arrived.
Some of the 31 eagles currently in the Alaska Raptor Center’s indoor flight center perch on logs today. The raptor center was busy this weekend responding to a number of calls involving electrocuted and starving eagles. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
One was killed in a collision with a car near the Channel Club Friday. Another eagle, reported Friday by a police caller to be sick or injured in Sitka National Historical Park, later died.
On Saturday an eagle died after contact with power lines on Monastery Street, and a dead eagle washed ashore on back beach, off Eagle Way. On Sunday a dead eagle was found in the Stratton Library parking lot on the SJ campus, apparently electrocuted by contact with a power line.
The last one picked up was found outside the great gray owl cage at the Raptor Center Sunday.
“She’s currently in ICU, very, very thin,” Cedarleaf said. “If she survives it will be a miracle.”
The Raptor Center has named her Natasha, since she was found next to the great gray owl, named Boris.
So far this year the Raptor Center has picked up 20 eagles, dead or alive, and has a pretty full house, with 31 eagles being rehabilitated in the main indoor flight center.
January and February are customarily busy months at the Raptor Center, Cedarleaf said.
“If it keeps going, we’re going to have a lot of eagles to release in the spring,” she said.
Alaska Raptor Center executive director Jennifer Cross sent an email today about feeding eagles:
“It may seem counter intuitive, but feeding eagles can just make the problem worse. The Alaska Raptor Center does not encourage the public to feed eagles, especially in town. When eagles associate humans as a source of food, they start losing their fear and can become territorial. Rather than moving on in search of food elsewhere, hungry eagles will congregate in certain areas around town, fighting over scraps left out by people. More often than not, it’s when they are aggressively chasing each other amongst obstacles like power lines, cars and buildings that they get hurt.”
