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(e) agle newsletter November/December 2015
www.baldeagles.org 113 Haines Highway Haines, Alaska 99827 907.766.3094 The American Bald Eagle Foundation is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of our national bird and its habitat throughout North America.
In this issue: ° Aviaries open to public ° ABEF enters Pre-Development
For more information about new our new monthly e-newsletter or to subscribe or unsubscribe, please contact our education & outreach coordinator at [email protected]
www.baldeagles.org P.O. Box 49 Haines, AK 99827 click here to support our work.
° Re-cap of 21st Alaska Eagle Festival ° Update on human skull ° ABEF has e-bird
Aviaries open for public viewing Pre-Development for new raptor enclosures begins
For the first time in the ABEF history, staff has opened up our aviaries for pub-lic viewing. During our 21st annual Alaska Bald Eagle Festival, staff members gave the first public tours which are limited to ten people.
The decision to open up our aviaries came from various needs that staff saw within our program. The first is our deci-sion to no longer expect all of our birds to come out on the glove and educate guests. Staff recognizes that not every avian ambassador is suited for this job and we want to make sure our feathered co-workers are always as comfortable as they can possibly be.
These changes mean that one of our red-tailed hawks, our great horned owl and our barred owl will no longer be com-ing out on the glove. However, guests can still interact with them by walking around their outdoor enclosures. Just because these birds are no longer com-ing out on the glove does not mean that their job is not as important as it was pre-viously. Instead guests can interact with these birds in the more natural setting of their aviaries and see behaviors like preening, standing on one leg and shak-ing out their feathers.
The “soft opening” of the aviaries came after a summer of staff redesigning the perching in the enclosures to fit the spe-cific species’ needs, as well as the indi-viduals’. Then at the end of summer, our maintenance team took out one of the plywood walls in each of the enclosures and replaced it with a wall of vinyl-coated wire. They also removed a dividing wall in our great horned owl and barred owls’ enclosures in order to give them a larger space. In addition to guests being able to view the birds, having a see-through wall means the birds get more light in their enclosures and can choose to experience elements like wind, rain, snow, etc.
Our local radio station, KHNS did a sto-ry about our first tours in the aviaries. To listen, please click here.
We are excited to share the aviaries with guests throughout the year, how-ever there is still large room for improve-ment. By the spring of 2017, staff would like to tear down the current enclosures and completely re-build so that the avi-aries are a sustainable outdoor nature center integrated into the landscape sur-rounding the facility. The first part of this process has already begun, as the ABEF has been entered into the Pre-Develop-ment Program which is ran by the Forak-er Group and funded by the Rasmuson Foundation. This means that over the course of the next year or so, representa-tives from the Foraker group will be help-ing the ABEF in determining the design requirements for the aviaries, evaluating the current aviaries and opportunities for re-construction, providing us with a concept design for the new aviaries, a project cost estimate and a develop-ment plan. In addition, they will help us find funders for our project, as our proj-ect and are mission is so unique, it does not fit into a many grant specifications. Essentially, they provide us with all of the building blocks to apply for grants and to begin a fundraising campaign, before we begin to ask donors for money for our project.
The ABEF staff is thrilled to have been accepted into the project and to be working with the Foraker Group. Two representatives flew into Haines for the day and we had our first meeting with them late last month. Last week, the pro-cess began when a surveyor came out to survey the ABEF property.
We hope you stay tuned to hear up-dates about the aviary re-design project and hope that in the future you’ll be able to help us out with making our vision come to life. Photos by Leia Minch
Top: The view of our new aviaries looking east. You can see the barred owl, bald eagle and Eurasian eagle owl enclo-sures all have open windows covered with vinyl coated wire. Middle: a close up view of a bald eagle and red tailed hawk enclosure. This is a taste of what guests can see on their aviary tour. Bottom left: Before modification, our avi-aries only had a couple of small windows with pole fencing covering them. Bottom right: the view of our bald eagle and barred owl enclosure before the walls were removed and replaced with vinyl coated wire.
Highlights from the 21st Alaska Bald Eagle Festival We’d like to thank everyone who came out to attend our
21st annual Alaska Bald Eagle Festival. The event ran smooth-ly, with visitors from across the U.S. and Canada coming to visit and watch the world’s largest gathering of bald eagles. Staff tried out new interactive classes for the community and festival attendees such as “anatomy & art” where stu-dents learned the form and function of raptors, then how to apply that knowledge to drawing the structure of birds. Based on the feedback of this class, staff hopes to offer more of these types of classes to the community throughout the year beginning in 2016.
The end of the week brought a three-day snow storm with snow reaching a foot deep in some parts of Haines. This made for picturesque scene in which photographers could frame bald eagles against the soft white snow. The week culminated on Saturday when a juvenile eagle was re-leased on the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve at 18 mile. That evening locals and festival-goers alike attended our Flight for Freedom banquet and fund raiser auction. We’re proud to announce we raised about $14,000 that evening in order to fund improvements for our raptor center and museum. We wouldn’t have been able to do this without the support from our generous donors from across Southeast Alaska and Whitehorse, Yukon.
If you were a festival attendee, we’d like for you to take this quick survey about the Festival. Your participation in this survey will supply us with valuable feedback so we can improve the Festival in future years to come. To take the sur-vey, please click here.
A s p e c i a l t h a n k s to o u r s p o n s o r s, d o n o r s & s p e a ke r s fo r m a ki n g t h i s eve n t p o s s i b l e.
Counter Clockwise Top: A Juvenile bald eagle was released from rehabilitation on the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. The bird was rehabilitated by Bird Treat-ment & Learning Center in Anchorage, and released as part of our “Flight for Freedom” fund raiser which raises funds for both organizations. Left: Participants in the “Avian Art & Anatomy” class learn to draw a live owl. Right: The Gei San dancers of the Chilkat Valley show guests traditional Tlingit dances celebrating our planet and life. Below: The band for our square dancing event which occurred on the Friday night of festival.
Our Flight for Freedom auction and daily operations at the Festival would not have been possible without the generous donations from these kind organizations and individuals: Our sponsors & donors: Alaska Airlines, Alaska Mountain Guides, Alaska Seaplanes, Chilkoot Lake Tours, Sockeye Cycle, Haines Rafting Company, Halsin-
gland Hotel, Summer Inn Bed & Breakfast, John Svenson, Tresham Gregg, Port Chilkoot Distillery, Alaska Sea Planes, Joe Ordonez, The Parts Place, Sarah J’s, First National Bank of Alaska, Dejon Delights, Alaska Sports Shop, Dave and Charlotte Olerud, Anne Puffer, Reg Pattee, Ron Horn, Michael Marks, Dena Selby, Big Foot Auto, Alaska Wild Bear Photography, Lynn View Lodge, Gary Matthews, Alaska Rod’s, Jan Dubber, Cottage Arts, Fireweed, Mountain Market, The Bamboo Room, Howser’s IGA, Carolyn’s Closet, Mike Ward, Gastineau Guiding, The Silverbow Inn, Alaskan Brewing Company, Glacier Gardens, Cozy Log Bed & Breakfast, Tracy’s King Crab Shack, Salt Modern Alaskan Cuisine, McGivney’s Sports Bar & Grill, Saffron Indian Comfort Cuisine, Yukon Wildlife Preserve, Takhini Hot Springs, Yukon Haven Suites, Who What Where Tours, Shilo’s Chalet with Muktuk Adventures and Alpine Bakery. Our presenters: Kevin White, Joe Ordonez, Pam Randles, Yasaman Shakeri, Wayne Price, Lindsay Caskenette, Travis Russell, Anastasia Wiley, Gei San Dancers & the Chilkat Dancers.
The American Bald Eagle Foundation now has an E-bird account. For those of you that don’t know, E-bird is an on-line database that keeps track of bird sightings across the world. Anyone can sign up and begin to collect data on the species in their area! You can even get an app on your phone for easy cataloging in the field.
If you’d like to check out our account, we’re listed as ABEa-gleFoundation on ebird.org. You never know when a bird sighting might have significance to those studying orni-thology.
Until now, there had not been a sighting recorded for the northern saw-whet owl in the Haines area. Not only will we be able to catalogue which birds we see in the field, but we can also document our raptor rescues. We’re hoping to contribute to science and conservation with all of the other e-birders documenting their findings! If you have any ques-tions on E-bird or our data, contact Chloe Goodson at [email protected]
As you may remember from our last news-letter, we unearthed a skull in a fill dirt on our property. After we were given the OK from the state medical examiner to continue sifting through our dirt pile, the Senior Re-search Archaeologist, Anastasia Wiley found a few more skull fragments.
Wiley and her team then began to sift through the dirt at a site near 6.5 mile Haines Highway (where our pile came from). A bit of the pelvis, more skull fragments, and a tooth were found along with the right tibia and femur. The tibia even had a cottonwood root shooting through it. The remains had deteriorated quite a bit due to their time in the wet ground, so it’s not likely that DNA testing is an option. Isotope analysis and ra-diocarbon dating may be possible using the tooth and a small skull fragment.
After all of the remains were found, work-shops and lectures on skeletal studies were presented at the Wiley residence with the help of Kassie Sugimoto (a bioarchaeologist and forensic anthropologist).
The first two classes went over an intro-duction to forensic anthropology and data collection methods. The third day covered the biological profile and methods for as-sessing age, sex, ancestry, and stature. One staff member, Chloe Goodson, was able to attend 3 of the workshops in order to under-stand more about the situation. We’ll contin-ue to include updates in our newsletter as we get them.
More human bones found in dirt pile
Did you know that between mid-November and mid-January over 29 different holidays are celebrated across the world?! Staff at the American Bald EagleFoundation wishes you serenity and joy this winter and laughter and happiness for whatever holiday you celebrate.
Happy Holidays from the American Bald Eagle Foundation
Happy Holidays from the American Bald Eagle Foundation
Foundation creates E-Bird account
Here is a screen shot of what the E-Bird page looks like. E-Bird lets people track the birds they in whatever location they may be in and could assist ornithologists in bird data collection.
Photo by Chloe GoodsonPhoto by Samantha Wilson
