Freedom in the Air

The Story of an Eagle Release

Sometimes something miserable, sordid and cruel can transform into a pure and wonderful thing of almost spiritual proportions. The story of Freedom, the Golden Eagle, is such a case.

Can anything be more free-spirited than a golden eagle high in the sky? Wheeling and soaring on thermals, an eagle has total freedom and complete mastery over hundreds of square miles in a three-dimensional habitat. We pathetic, earthbound, wingless bipeds can only dream of such wonders. So how miserable is the despair of such a creature when it is kept in confinement? In this case, confinement not just for a few days or even weeks – but for thirteen years. Thirteen years of misery. Labeled as an imprint, and thus unreleasable, this golden eagle was kept as a display/educational bird by a person in Wisconsin. Local rumors spread that this individual was neglecting his birds and eventually the US Fish and Wildlife Service confiscated numerous raptors ranging from a kestrel to a golden eagle. The perpetrator was fined and barred from keeping birds in the near future.

The rescued golden eagle was transferred to an experienced Wisconsin rehabilitator, Barbara Harvey. For the next two years Barbara patiently nurtured the bird to health and observed its behavior. Barbara gave her all the good food in the world, and – but most of all - Barbara knew what she saw, and she knew that this bird had a chance for freedom. That is when she named her Freedom.

Over a two year period Barbara built up Freedom’s strength until she was ready to do her final flight training. So where do you send an eagle who needs the world’s best flying practice? Why not choose the place with the first-ever, and one of the longest, eagle flying space in the US, probably in the world? The Birds of Prey Foundation, of course.

The Eagle Flight Cage

In June 2004, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Barbara Harvey transferred Freedom to Sigrid and her band of devoted workers at Birds of Prey Foundation where she was introduced into the eagle flight cage. Next to the door of the eagle flight cage is a small sign that reads “Where Eagles Dare”. As someone who has only recently become familiar with the facilities at the Foundation, I can attest that it is not the eagles that need to do the daring, it is the person entering who needs to dare. If you have not seen the eagle flight cages here is a description.

Inside the Eagle Flight Cage

Imagine a space more than 100 feet long, 25 feet wide and 18 feet high. There are no columns or other supports. The roof is only held at the edges in order to create the biggest possible space for flying. The side walls and the ceiling are a parallel lattice of roofing lathes with wide spaces between, so that the inside is bright and airy. At each end of the flight cage is a roosting platform and a landing beam. The landing beams are Astroturf-covered two by four planks that are big and chunky, and believe me, they need to be.

Get ready to duck!

An eagle flying towards you is an experience unlike any other. An eagle is a fistful of kitchen knives racing on eight-foot-wide wings. When they launch off the platform they have time for two, or so, wing pushes before they are going forty miles an hour in a shallow dive to the middle of the space and then they rise to line up for landing. Landing is a controlled explosion. It sounds like someone just drove into your car. The eagle applies some brakes by stalling its wings just a touch then eight forward-pointing two-inch-long talons slam into the beam. As I said before, it is the visitors who need to dare. There is a moment in the flight when this feathered missile seems to be heading straight at your head before a flight correction lines up the eagle with the landing site.

Freedom in Sigrid's safe hands

So you cautiously enter the space wondering what to expect. At the far end are ten or twelve eagles looking alert. They look magisterial but not too dangerous yet. But every few moments an eagle pushes off and hurtles to the other end. When you have seen such a flight you realize that giving these flying miracles every possible chance to be free is the ONLY option.

Heidi and Sigrid are experts at catching an eagle ready for release. They have huge three foot diameter butterfly nets. Needless to say, these pieces of apparatus have a tough life. They look as if they've been dropped into a threshing machine and in some ways they have. But regardless of that, they do the job of stopping a speeding eagle in mid flight without harm.

Did I mention that Freedom is extremely beautiful too?

Time to go

On the day of Freedom’s release Heidi immobilized Freedom without drama. Sigrid takes up the story.

On August 18th, 2004 Freedom began her life in freedom. After we caught her in the cage, and as I untangled the bird out of the net, I painted in my mind for her the mountains, the blue skies, the green valleys, the turquoise rivers and lakes, and her flight to freedom for her. She never showed any kind of aggression when I held her in my arms. There was peace between us. I think she understood my thoughts and she totally accepted the goodwill in my heart. I felt so honored that she trusted me. Eagles always make us feel honored in their presence. It rained and stormed on the Eastern Slope of the Rocky Mountains as we traveled towards her carefully-planned release site. The clouds began to lift as we crossed the Continental Divide when we descended to the Western Slope.

The release site needed to combine mountains, water and trees. Sigrid, Charlie Keyes and myself soon found the perfect location for her release. Miraculously, the sun peered through the clouds and the rains and the thunder stopped. The time and the place we chose seemed to be perfect; our lofty mountain terrace overlooking a lush river valley. The mountainsides all around the terrace are covered with lodge pole pines with extensive marshy wetlands below. And mountains - lots of mountains. Charlie, our intern, and Sigrid unloaded Freedom's large carrier and positioned it a few feet back from the precipice. Freedom had the wind in her nostrils and could sense that freedom was close. Frequently, rehabilitated mammals or birds take a few moments to scan the horizon and build a mental map before proceeding. Freedom, however, didn't want to waste time and was already slamming the inside of the box with her wings and kicking the door with those mighty feet. A quick decision was made not to wait any longer and Charlie released the catch while I hovered with my camera.

On the brink of freedom

There was an explosion of action from the box as the door was barged aside. In the blink of an eye Freedom was on her toes and powering up the wings for launch. She went straight out into nearly a thousand feet of free air and she flew as if she had never been grounded. She soared round to the right in a series of circles close to the treetops on the slope until we couldn’t follow any more. Finally Freedom had absolute freedom and we three smiled with satisfaction.

Where she belongs at last!

Once she was out of site we could only wish her luck and good fortune. By now she could be soaring anywhere. It doesn't matter where she is, it only matters that she is soaring again. Eagles have been documented to live for 102 years, so let's hope that Freedom has another 87 years of soaring.

Freedom's New Domain

Let me give Sigrid the last word.

We released Freedom in honor and in appreciation of Barbara Harvey, a thoughtful and experienced rehabilitator who was instrumental in evaluating her for eventual release. We also thank Ed Spoon of the US Fish and Wildlife Service who agreed and shipped Freedom to us. In the end, and with the highest respect and appreciation, we released Freedom in the spirit, and in love for the late Marlys Bulander, Permit Administrator at the Migratory Bird Permit Office, Region 3, of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who, in the fall of 2003, expressed her desire to have this bird sent to us for her flight to freedom in Colorado.

We are the place where birds can soar to freedom on mended wings and on mended minds. May our Lady Freedom fly high in our beautiful mountains and blue skies, and prosper for a long time to come.

There have been many splendid releases in the past 24 years. Each one of them counts and each one of them was important and magnificent, and all of them were inspiring. But when Lady Freedom left the final space of her confinement and soared into the lofty air of the valley below her, we suddenly were embraced with an overwhelming and powerful feeling of dominance and strength. I have never felt these incredible dynamics of a release in the past. It truly was a release of a lifetime.

Written by
Peter Butler, August 2004

Updated by Elke on September 7, 2005 06:38 PM