Raptor Walking

When I was doing post-graduate studies at the University of Washington in Seattle,  I volunteered one day a week at the zoo. I was interested in raptors, a.k.a. predatory birds, like eagles, hawks, falcons, and owls. Mostly,  I helped the keeper clean out habitats. At that time, the enclosures were pretty primitive, mostly concrete and rusted chain link.  The raptors they had at the Woodland Park Zoo were almost all birds that had been brought in injured, and because of their condition they couldn't be released back in the wild.

Quite often, I was asked to take a bird out for a walk.  Mostly, I did this with a peregrine falcon and a prairie falcon.

Me and the Peregrine

I walked the bird around the zoo, talking to visitors sometimes, answering their questions. At that time, their was great concern that raptors were threatened by DDT, a pesticide that, when concentrated in the bird's body would cause the shells of its eggs to be too thin.  The process of incubating the eggs would often result in the eggs being crushed.   DDT is no longer used, and that's good for the birds.  Raptor populations have recovered in places where their is still habitat for them and adequate populations of their natural prey.

Their was one bird at the zoo that intimdated the hell out of me.  It was a golden eagle. This particular bird had a wingspan of about six feet and a set of industrial strength talons. They looked like they could penetrate steel.   The keeper I worked with loved to send me into that bird's enclosure with dinner,  which was mostly a nasty mix of ground up animal bits...kinda of like hamburger with feathers and bones.  Anyway, that golden eagle would focus on me like I was the meal it was really interested in.  I wish I had a photo of that eagle. It had a broken wing and could not be released, but it was in its prime.... a majestic and powerful presence even if it couldn't fly.

The biggest threat to predatory birds, indeed to all birds and animals, is the loss of habitat from human encroachment.   Yet another consequence of human overpopulation.