Pennsylvania Game News -November 2008 - 52

them on along the ridge. Then the tenth golden eagle struck the bait. One of the lines to the bait broke, and the eagle hung on to it while flapping half off the trapping platform. Afraid to spring the bow net, Miller waited, hoping the eagle would flap back on to the platform. When it did she sprang the net and had a perfect catch. She managed to get the eagle into a large carrying case she had brought along, but she couldn’t haul it up the rock slide and down the trail to our place, a good half-mile away, before dark. That’s where our sons came in. Bruce and I waited and waited. It grew dark and still we waited. Finally, in they came, our two sons and Miller, bearing the eagle in the carrying case. After giving us a chance to look in and see the magnificent bird, they carried the case down to our cellar and covered it with a sheet for the night to keep the bird calm. The following morning researchers and bystanders began assembling to work and watch by 8 a.m. It was a cold, damp and overcast 37-degree Sunday morning. Dr. Todd Katzner, Director of Conservation and Field Research at The National Aviary, arrived from Pittsburgh first. The Scott family, who had been packing up from a day of hunting when they brought the eagle down off the ridge, also came, as well as our sons. Before the other researchers arrived, Katzner carried the case into our shed. He carefully opened it and climbed halfway inside the case to grab the feet of the eagle and pull it out. “I think this is a first-year female,” he said, and gave us a lesson on golden eagle biology. He spread her tail to show the white on it, and her more than 5-foot wingspan to display the white underneath. Both were signs of her age. But her massive golden head was already its golden adult color. Although her beak looked dangerous, it was her taloned feet that were. She had been hatched sometime last April or May in northern Quebec or Labrador, he 52 thought. Miller, Lanzone, and their children Jeffrey, Ashley and Phoebe, arrived at 8:30, followed by Dan Ombalski, another researcher from State College. Once everyone was assembled on our veranda the work began. They put a cap over the eagle’s head so she wouldn’t be too stressed, although Katzner told us that her cortisone level was high. They measured her wings and tail and brought out a chart to check sizes against what would determine the sex of the bird. Her legs were thick; her bright yellow talons huge. “Fresh, happy feet,” Miller called them. She weighed 8.4 pounds, which definitely made her the bigger, heavier female — the first female eastern golden eagle ever radio-tagged. It took hours to fit the harness and radio transmitter over her abundant feathers and impressive breast, and they shook her several times so she would flap wildly. Then they would once again adjust the harness. They sewed a section on with thread so that the transmitter would fall off in a year or two. All of this was part of a new kind of transmitter, and Lanzone — perfectionist that he is — had been up all night tweaking it. Instead of transmitting data once an hour, as the other transmitters did the previous year, this one was made to transmit every 30 seconds. Finally, all the actors were ready. That was when the researchers decided that the eagle would be released on the rock slide where she had been trapped, so she would resume her migration with as little disruption as possible. All of us hiked to the site except for Katzner, who drove The National Aviary truck that held the golden eagle in the carrying case. By then three Powdermill interns had joined us as well. What a crowd to usher off an eagle. I picked my way down the rock slide to the first open area where they planned the release. Everyone had cameras and surrounded the eagle and Lanzone who was holding her. At that moment, Miller came GAME NEWS

Pennsylvania Game News -November 2008

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