America’s majestic national bird was close to extinction when Tina Morris, a young researcher, was asked to help bring three chicks to adulthood. First, she had to conquer a fear of heights
t was a daunting task, with little likelihood of success. An adventurous but anxious graduate researcher without any experience of looking after birds was dispatched to the wilds of upstate New York to become a human eagle mother: feeding, teaching – and keeping alive – three helpless eagle chicks.
She didn’t look down and finally made it to the aerial hide. Here, she had to keep herself concealed from the eagles, so they wouldn’t become imprinted and learn to associate people with being fed. Then she fixed fresh food – scavenged roadkill or carp that she’d caught – to a barbecue fork taped to a long stick, and lifted it into the nest. The eagles tore into her meals. And day by day, they grew.
After graduating in anthropology, a year’s work in a zoo convinced her that animals belonged in the wild. “I thought, whatever I do after this, I’ve got to be working to get them out of these cages, not just propagating the species within the bars of the cage. That’s why I loved the Peregrine Fund, because that’s what they were doing,” she says. She read about Cade’s work restoring animals to the wild and talked her way into studying at Cornell.
The biggest test came when the eagles learned to fly. We imagine a mighty eagle simply soars into the sky, but the fledglings often flew short distances before crash-landing, unable to get themselves airborne again. Morris had to track them via the radio tags, shadowing them like an over-anxious parent, making sure they came to no harm. This was easier said than done.
The return of the bald eagles could now be publicised as a good news story and the media desperately wanted the tale of the young woman who had secretly tended to the chicks alone in the wilderness. Morris was besieged by interview requests, but drew back when she realised magazines wanted to put her and not the eagles on their covers. “I felt very strongly that the birds should be the story. They just didn’t get that.
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