When a juvenile eagle attacked a guest at Cascade Lodge and Restaurant, kitchen manager Bernie Banks came to the rescue, throwing his chef ’s coat over the eagle and pulling it off of the woman.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Banks said, “I worked in Alaska for a few years and ran across moose and bear, but I’ve never had to wrestle an eagle before.”
The action by Banks cost him his chef ’s coat, which was shredded, but neither he nor the woman were hurt.
Cascade co-owner Thomas McAleer said he spoke with the woman the next morning and she said she was fine, although she had some scratches where the eagle had grabbed her leg.
When authorities arrived, the eagle hitched a ride on top of a Cook County Sherriff ’s Department truck as it backed up onto Highway 61 and then later rested for a time on a Minnesota state trooper’s car before flying off.
On Friday, August 14, the eagle was captured 18 miles away near Taconite Harbor, by a wildlife technician working for the Superior National Forest. They brought the eagle to the Duluth Wildwoods Wildlife Rehabilitation. The center’s mission is to help orphaned, sick, or injured animals return to their habitats.
On Sunday, August 16, a representative from Duluth Wildwoods Wildlife Rehabilitation returned a call and said the eagle had been transferred to the Raptor Center in Saint Paul.
“We didn’t find anything wrong with the eagle in a preliminary check,” she said, but added they felt it was important to send the eagle to a place that had the facilities to do a more exhaustive diagnostic study to see if the eagle was okay.
The next day, Dr. Ponder called from the Raptor Center in St. Paul. “At this point it’s not clear what’s wrong with the eagle. He is skinny and he has an elevated blood count, but it’s not clear what caused the eagle to attack the woman. We will do a further medical evaluation and treat the eagle if possible. Then we will work with the DNR on behavior issues. We will see if he is normal around other eagles and how he behaves around humans.”
When asked if the eagle will be returned to the wild, Dr. Ponder said it is much too early to know if that can happen, noting the eagle will be at the Raptor Center for the immediate future.
Just why the bird attacked the woman is a matter of conjecture. Two theories are that it might have been sick, or it might have been fed by humans in the past and lost its fear of people.
The woman who was scratched got very close to the eagle, never a good idea with any wild animal or bird of prey, for that matter.
The volunteer from the Duluth Wildwoods Rehabilitation Center cautioned, “We advise people to never feed animals for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that you might get hurt. The second reason is that if the animal you are feeding hurts or scares you, authorities will often kill it because it is aggressive towards people. Please let your readers know it’s never a good idea to feed wild animals.”
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