By Joe Atkinson
After months of training and conditioning the female golden eagle we called Penny, she was, for all intents and purposes, ready for free flying up on the mountain, the next step for her return to freedom. Penny had come into our hands as a victim of lead poisoning ingested from eating dead coyotes shot with lead bullets. Lead is a serious issue facing any animal or man that eats anything shot with a lead bullet. After going through extensive, intensive care to purge the deadly lead from her system, Penny had finally been deemed healthy. But the question remained whether she could fly well enough and strong enough to once again take her place in the sky at the top of the food chain. That is where we came in — our job was to train Penny in the sport of falconry, fly her and hunt her, evaluate her strength and endurance and ultimately answer the question “can she be a wild eagle once again”.
Preparing eagles for return to the wild is no easy job. It requires years of experience and a lot of patience. Knowing when its time for them to go is, for us, the hardest part of the process. We have a checklist, if you will, that each eagle must complete to be, what we consider, ready for life in the wild. My wife, Cordi, and I have been working with golden eagles since the mid 70’s and we have returned dozens of eagles to the wild. We have trained and hunted with more golden eagles than anyone in the US ever has. I’m not sure what that gets us but, nevertheless, it has become a huge part of our lives. We moved to Vale, Oregon from California, in large part, to have access to more public land to hunt and soar and prepare eagles for release.
Soaring and hunting are the two most important aspects of any eagles life. A young eagle’s survival comes down to those two factors, with soaring capability actually being the key. The easiest way to explain what young eagles are faced with is this example. A typical young golden eagle, just out on its own, has a given amount of energy, energy that comes from food. Now, think of the amount of food in the eagle’s system as gas in your car. When the tank is full all is well. You can drive around doing all sorts of fun things. Eagles are no different. With a full tank they can spend their time playing, chasing things, doing whatever young eagles do but, just like the gas in your car’s tank, when the gas gauge gets closer and closer to empty, your interest shifts to finding a gas station. We’ve all been there and felt the ever-increasing panic as we watch the needle go down. It’s the same thing for a young eagle — as its tank edges closer to empty its hunger increases and young eagles become more desperate for food. More times than not, young golden eagles must travel great distances to find hunting grounds that they can hunt without being driven off by adult eagles. The most energy efficient way for them to travel on their quest for new hunting territories that they can call their own is to catch and ride a thermal. Thermals are large columns of warm air that rise miles up into the sky and eagles are masters at using them to carry them, with little effort, hundreds of miles. Like coasting in your car to conserve fuel, eagles coast along, riding the thermals, using very little energy, looking for hunting grounds. Eagles that are not in condition cannot find thermals and cannot stay aloft long enough to travel the distances required to find food. We believe that the typical young golden eagle should be able to stay on the wing for a minimum of two hours. Each young eagle that we see has it own set of issues but, like I said, if they can eventually ride a thermal for two hours or more and catch game they are ready for life in the wild.
Penny had shown steady improvement, flying long distances to a lure that looks like a fake jackrabbit, the golden eagle’s main prey. Her endurance increased daily until the time came to take her into the hills and give her the full test. Penny was already a full adult eagle when she came to us. She was more than five years old so she had been killing and eating things on her own. So, unlike the young eagles that have zero experience in the wild, all Penny needed was to be conditioned and, if able, to be released. So Cordi and I loaded Penny in our truck and headed up a mountain to let Penny catch a ride on a thermal.
Field notes:
The conditions were perfect this morning, temperatures in the 70’s with the slightest of a breeze. We could feel the thermals building as the ground heated up as we prepared Penny for her first free flight. Cordi attached the radio telemetry to Penny’s tail so we could track her if she were to wander off. With Penny on my arm I walked out to the point overlooking the massive valley below. I could feel the warm air rising, removed Penny’s hood and she looked around taking in the scene before her. If eagles could smile Penny was grinning from ear to ear. Months and months of being in captivity with, in her mind, no chance of freedom had all come down to this moment. Standing on a mountain with the warm air calling to her Penny fluffed all of her feathers, something all birds do, kind of like a readjustment before they launch off. Penny looked around and launched off my arm, flying out over the valley. She flew for what seemed miles, becoming a small black dot out over the vast ocean of sage covered landscape. Watching Penny through our binoculars we saw her set her wings and begin to circle. With each circle Penny was taken higher and higher up into the blue sky, gaining hundreds of feet in height with each turn. Now just a speck in the sky, Penny broke off her ride on the thermal and came back over Cordi and me at somewhere around seven thousand feet. I pulled out my fake jack rabbit lure and started to swing it around in big circles, whistling for Penny to come in. At first she showed no interest in the lure. I was beginning to question the training and our relationship with Penny. But after what seemed like an eternity with no reaction, Penny folded up her seven-foot wings and started a breathtaking dive back to earth, back to Cordi and me.
We released Penny back to the wild on a warm day with a full tank. She flew off without looking back, riding a thermal high up into the heavens to retake her place as a top predator, to see things that we can never see, to know things we can never know.