Birds of Prey
Quincy Herald Whig, January 28, 2002
By: Jamie Busen-Mitchell

Susie Naderhoff heard the owls around her home in Quincy. She just never saw them. She’d catch a shadow of them here and there, never fully getting to see what they looked like. That’s why she was so pleased to be at the Oakley-Lindsay Center Sunday afternoon, attending the birds of prey show. “I find this so fascinating,” she said. “I want to know what they’re all about, why they’re in town and what they look like.”

Organizers of the sixth annual Eagles Along the Mississippi program say that education is what this past weekend was all about.

About 600 People attended one of three one-hour shows on Sunday. Before that, dozens of people went to the park south of Lock and Dam 21 to view bald eagles.

Ed Adcox, a ranger with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said the eagles are scattered now because of the weather. Although he has viewed more that 30 this year, he couldn’t estimate how many were seen this weekend.

“However, the mild weather does help gurantee that there will be more birds around next year,” he said. “There’s an 80 percent mortality rate of birds in harsh weather.” Naderhoff, who stopped by a show while her son was at soccer, said she though the whole weekend program was a great idea. “It’s very informative,” she said. “Birds can be so mysterious.”

Representatives from the World Bird Sancturary in Eureka, MO, brought about seven birds for viewing. They included a great honed owl, red-tailed hawk, hooded vulture and Chester, a harris hawk.

The program provided information about birds and preserving the environment, and flight demonstrations by some of the birds.

The corps co-sponsored the event along with Dr. Drew Kaiser of the Katherine Road Animal Hospital and the Raptor Rehabilitation Center.

Kaiser’s goal has always been to create awareness.
“Education for people starts at a grassroots level,” he said. “People come year after year and will gradually learn things.”
Kaiser was pleased with the high turnout this year, and hopes more people to come every year.

Kaiser’s Raptor Center is the only one licensed within 100 miles, and is supported by donations and his own funds. He said that right now, his Raptor Center is a “full house.”
Adcox said their programs gradually getting the word out to people about birds.

“If the public doesn’t get to these programs and ask these questions then they’ll never know, he said. “This event was never intended to be a family outing. It’s always supposed to have been educational.”

Adcox said that in the future, they hope to expand the programs to include more than just birds.
Other sponsors of the event were WGEM, Gully Transportation, Refreshment Services Pepsi, Greg Nixon and Wild Birds Unlimited.




Eagle Released-
Quincy Herald Whig, December 17, 2002
By: Edward Husar

Hannibal, MO. A bald eagle injured in a trapping accident Dec. 7 was released back into the wild Monday after being nursed back to good health.

Matt Markley, Missouri Department of Conservation agent for Marion County, said the bird was accidentally caught in a leg hold trap in the vicinity of Bear Creek, near Hannibal. “The trapper who found the injured eagle contacted me,” Markley said. It had an injure on its foot, but it didn’t seem to be too bad.”

Markley carefully gathered up the eagle and took it to the Raptor Rehabilitation Center at Katherine Road Animal Hospital in Quincy, Ill., where the bird was nursed back to health within nine days.

The not-for-profit Raptor Rehabilitation Center specializes in the care and treatment of ailing raptors, such as eagles. “They do a good job of rehabilitating these raptors so we can release them back into the wild,” Markley said.

Drew Kaiser, a veterinarian in charge of the center, said the eagle had some moderate injuries to its feet. He said the animal was kept in confinement and given antibiotics. “We had to force-feed him because he wasn’t too cooperative,” Kaiser said.

Kaiser described the bird as a “gorgeous, mature eagle” weighing between eight and nine pounds. He said it was fortunate the eagle was discovered in a timely manner.
“If Matt had not gotten him out of the trap, he would have died,” Kaiser said.

Once a determination was madet hat the eagle was ready to resume its normal activities, Markley was summoned to pick up the bird. He placed it in a cage and drove to Hannibal’s Nipper Park along the Mississippi River, not far from Bear Creek.

Shortly after 2 p.m., Markley opened the cage’s door, and the eagle cautiously walked out. The bird stood a moment and looked around, then it flew off gracefully, heading northward where several other eagles were seen soaring overhead.