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Wild eagle loves our free grub

Lingering at city zoo longer than usual

By: Aldo Santin

Posted: 02/28/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

A migratory bald eagle takes in the sights at the city’s zoo Friday. (WAYNE GLOWACKI/WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

A wild bald eagle has been making annual stops at the Assiniboine Park Zoo for the past three years, surprising zoo staff and the little Arctic foxes now forced to keep a constant look over their furry shoulders.

"I like to say that it came for the company but now stays for the food," zoo curator Bob Wrigley said Friday afternoon.

He said the young bald eagle first appeared three years ago, stopping to chat with a pair of the zoo's caged bald eagles -- believed to be the oldest bald eagles in captivity.

The young bird of prey, believed to be male because of its smaller size and about 10 years of age because of the colourful feathers on its feet, normally comes in mid-March and stays only for about a week.

But this year, it's already here for its second week.

"He arrived two or three weeks earlier than usual and with all the free food around, I think he just decided stay," Wrigley said.

The free food Wrigley referred to is the scraps of meat and fish fed daily to the Arctic foxes, located in an open enclosure adjacent to the eagles.

Wrigley said the wild bald eagle likes to perch in the poplar trees that surround the caged bald eagles, and the birds chat back and forth. But the wild visitor also frequently swoops down into the Arctic fox enclosure to eat the scraps the foxes leave behind.

"The foxes scurry around and usually head underground when the eagle comes down," Wrigley said. "We count them every morning and we haven't lost any yet."

Wrigley said Winnipeg is on the bald eagles' migratory path from the central U.S. states into northern Manitoba and Ontario. The birds usually follow the Red River north.

"In a couple of weeks, there could be hundreds of them flying this way," Wrigley said, adding that one of the best places to view them is from the bridge at St. Adolphe. "One birdwatcher counted 168 bald eagles through that area one spring."

The zoo's own pair of bald eagles has earned an international reputation for more than just their age. Wrigley said they've been mating almost every year for the past 20 years. They hatched two bald eagles last spring, which are being sold to a zoo in the United Kingdom.

"They've been reproducing for 20 years... it's unheard of," Wrigley said, adding that most bald eagles in the wild live only for 15 years. "We've sent eagles to every continent on the earth."

Wrigley said the zoo has another three bald eagles that were brought here after being found injured in the wild and have since been rehabilitated. Those also are being sold to a zoo in the United Kingdom.

The zoo is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the winter.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 28, 2009 A5

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