Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: mechanic on February 03, 2010, 08:14:22 PM
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyR79WMSCK8&feature=rec-fresh+div-f-5-HM
An eagle that lost a wing is taken hang gliding. Quite a beautifull act of love. Thought it was worth sharing.
S!
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S! thank you for shareing
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Awesome stuff, the bird looked happier :aok :salute
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That is cool it reminds me of the people who were blind and then new technologies come out to fix their blindness and they can see again. Cool Stuff.
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Great find !!! you could see the Eagle getting into it about 20 secs into it, like he had that sense of freedom again :aok
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That was beautiful.
Steely
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That was a nice clip, thanks.
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Cool idea, but I wonder if it's really any different than taking someone who can't walk, putting them up on your shoulders, and walking around with them? That person probably misses the ability to walk, but still isn't walking when you carry them around on your shoulders.
I can't imagine the eagle would even be as excited about the flying ride-along as the person on your shoulders would be about being carried around.
Don't get me wrong, I feel bad about the eagle being crippled...
I just think this type of thing is more of a "make the people feel good about themselves" thing, if not a "look at what I can do" thing. As a matter of fact, simply keeping the eagle alive is basically doing that as well.
The eagle obviously doesn't think it's "flying", it's just being transported. If you want visual "proof" of that, you can see the eagle isn't holding its head in a "flight posture", and is making no effort to steer.
I work with birds of prey every day. They don't show a smidgen of emotion. They care about eating. Then they don't care about anything until it's time to eat again. Part of the year they care about mating and rearing offspring. Well, even then they don't "care", they just behave...
Mentally, they're a lot like snakes. If you had a paralyzed snake, and dragged it around on the ground, would that be film-worthy for You Tube as well?
If that eagle "cares" that it can't fly, it's because it can't go eat when it wants to, it can't get away from the ugly two-legged predators that are often nearby, and it can't go sit where it wants to in order to look for it's next meal. Being strapped to a hang glider doesn't accomplish anything that the eagle would use flight to accomplish.
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That's your opinion MTN, and it's a fair geuss, I couldnt deny or confirm your claims. Personally I saw the eagle looking around as if it were in flight, using it's eyes to scan distant horizons not easy to do on the ground. Feeling the wind rushing through it's feathers. I think the bird enjoyed the experience. I think you are being too cinical to say the handler did it just to make people think he was a 'good guy'. He loves that bird, you can tell. He just wanted to do what he could. In a perfect world the eagle would get a replacement wing....impossible. But in this realistic world the guy did the most he could to give his friend a joyride. The only other options available are to do nothing, or to put the bird to sleep. Hang gliding is preferable in my mind.
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That's your opinion MTN, and it's a fair geuss, I couldnt deny or confirm your claims. Personally I saw the eagle looking around as if it were in flight, using it's eyes to scan distant horizons not easy to do on the ground. Feeling the wind rushing through it's feathers. I think the bird enjoyed the experience. I think you are being too cinical to say the handler did it just to make people think he was a 'good guy'. He loves that bird, you can tell. He just wanted to do what he could. In a perfect world the eagle would get a replacement wing....impossible. But in this realistic world the guy did the most he could to give his friend a joyride. The only other options available are to do nothing, or to put the bird to sleep. Hang gliding is preferable in my mind.
I don't doubt for a second he loves the bird. I feel the same way about mine.
Yes, the bird looked around during its ride. We like to think that means it enjoyed it. The wind rushes through its feathers on the ground too. Actually, I'm sure it can feel the wind better when it isn't restrained...
"Friendship" is a misnomer for sure. Is a pet snake a "friend"? Does your goldfish "like" you? If you set the goldfishes aquarium in the pond, so it could see further, would it be happier? These birds are nothing like the social animals we keep as pets, which actually "like" us, or value they're position in relation to us. Birds of prey aren't "social", and have no concept of "friend", "like/love", "gratitude", "freedom", "captive", etc...
An eagle in that situation is at it's "happiest" when it's fed, and its caregiver goes away. Anything other than that equates to less "pleasure".
Not to be argumentative, but why do you feel the hang glider ride is better than nothing, or better than euthanasia? Why/how is the life of that bird valuable enough to justify killing other animals to keep it alive? I'm a raptor fanatic, and the last thing I'd want to do is kill the eagle. But why is that? Is it "fair" to the animals that are killed to keep the eagle alive, for them to be used to keep a crippled animal alive. Is there a purpose to it?
That eagle weighs about 4x what my redtails do. To keep my redtail fed requires about 6-10 mice per day, or the equivalent. For a lot of reasons, a small, whole-animal diet is vital to these birds. They're not being fed an equivalent to dog food, which can come from byproducts of our own animal use. If my redtail were crippled, would it be "ok" for me to kill 40-70 mice per week to keep it fed? What if I gave it rides?
Are the birds more valuable than mice? Maybe because they look nicer? Because they can fly? Because we like them better?
I'm just asking open-ended questions. This is a topic I see/hear about constantly (just last week I was called out to a nearby farm to look at an injured redtail hawk), and I'm curious about why people feel the way they do...
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You raise some very good points especially the food aspect. I think it comes down to love, albeit misplaced love from a human to an unloving animal. This assuming that the bird does not have a soul beyond keeping itself fed, as you seem to suggest. You are educated on the subject far beyond me i know considering you keep a redtail. That in itself is a slightly strange fact, considering that you speak so strongly of freedom yet you hold an animal 'captive' yourself. that would mean your redtail is also happiest after you (a caregiver) feed it and leave it alone? Would it not be alot happier free in the wild then? What justification do you have for keeping that animal out of it's natural lifestyle. The caregiver in this clip has justification, the animal will die in the wild with only one wing. To die would be the natural result of losing a wing, so that is perverting the course of nature. But perhaps he could not bare to condem the bird? You keep the animal, i assume, because it brings you happiness and satisfaction. I also assume that you feel you have a relationship with your animal?
Are mice worth less than an eagle? I don't know. Are chickens worth less than our children? Who can say. Do both need to be sustained through the death of other creatures? Yes, unlesss a vegetarian diet provides enough nutrition to live healthy lives. Are mice or chickens worth less than a crippled eagle or crippled child? Again, I don't know the answer. But i do know that if my child was crippled I would still kill chickens to keep it alive. Some might say that's a big leap from a bird to a human child. Other would not say it is such a huge leap.
Why is hang gliding better than nothing at all or euthanasia? Let me take that one in a round about fashion. What is wrong with the bird? It cannot fly. So, does the bird wish to die? I doubt it. The bird still feels the will to survive or it would not feed. So That leaves us with two options. Nothing or hang gliding. What is the most obvious thing life offers to keep us going? Distractions. Boredom is a killer. So if the hang gliding is even a worthy distraction for the bird, it is more valuable than doing nothing sitting on a perch all day.
Why do people think this video clip is beautifull? Because of what it signifies. Nothing to do with how the bird reacts to the experience. It's beautifull because the caregiver thought to do it and followed it through. Because he in his heart hoped that it may bring some pleasure to the bird. That is what touches hearts. Interesting debate.
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Lots of good points Bat!
I don't want you to get the wrong idea as to my opinion of "freedom" when it comes to animals. I'm absolutely, completely, in favor of having animals in captivity, using them in a "humane" sense (although that term is one I question too), killing them, eating them, wearing parts of them, etc... Animal use doesn't bother me in the slightest.
Yes, my birds are absolutely "happiest" when I'm not around. Especially if they've just eaten. They don't hang around because they like me, they don't get excited to see me, or excited when I get home (like my dogs do). They're not social animals, they don't even "like" their mates; they just allow them to share a territory.
My birds do get very "interested" when I approach at certain times, or in a certain manner, because they know that hunting and feeding is coming up. They're not excited about me, but what my approach represents.
From what I've experienced with my birds, they "use" me, as much as I "use" them. My birds are for hunting. I also use them for education, and falconers as a whole have acquired knowledge that has made the restoration of birds of prey (such as the bald eagle, and peregrine falcon) as well as the rehabilitation of injured birds of prey, and care of "display" birds (such as at zoo's) possible, productive, and successful. They're not really given the credit they're due in those respects, but the knowledge they've shared in those respects has been vital. The knowledge gained through 4000 years of caring for and hunting with these birds teaches things that are difficult (if even possible) to gain through regular field study.
As I said, my birds are for hunting. They "use" me as a flushing tool. I basically become the masters dog. My birds follow me around through the air or trees (depending on what type I'm flying) and come to learn very quickly that their hunting success goes up with me, and that I'll "help" them if they grab things that are a challenge (size-wise, mostly) and I give them food for behavior that I like. In their minds, I never take food away, but I do give it to them (in fact, I do take away their kills, they just don't realize it). Sitting in a tree by themselves, they may see one or two rabbits/pheasants a day. Following me around, they'll see 8-10 per hour... They're flying free, so they come back by "choice" (Jedi mind-leash?), although they are trained to do that, and don't have any comprehension of "captive" vs "free". They want to eat, and then wait until they get hungry enough to eat again.
They make terrible pets. If I wasn't hunting with them, I wouldn't have them.
My main interest in the birds is for fun/sport. I can also feed my family to some extent with them. They give me enjoyment, much more-so than any of my other animals. It's basically hardcore bird watching. Although they give me a lot of enjoyment, I wouldn't say we have too much of a "relationship". Once they're fed, they don't want me around. They're not scared of me, but they don't "like" me... What I didn't so much expect when I got into falconry was how much more I would learn, and how much enjoyment that would bring me (and to others, as I do a fair amount of educational work with the birds). It's given me much more insight into predator/prey dynamics for sure, and taught me how wrong the fairytale myth they teach us in school is (the one where they make it sound like predators only kill the sick/weak animals, and only kill what they can eat, to start with). I've been studying birds of prey as best I could in school and college (loads of biology, zoology, etc). But, I learned more in 6 months of hands-on work with my first bird than I did in my previous 30 years.
What does the bird get from it? Individually, a better chance at survival. Species-wise, nothing. In the wild, redtails suffer a 65% mortality rate their first year. 35% make it to 1 year old, in other words. 1 year olds have a 35-40% chance of making it to their second birthday. Those odds pretty much continue each year. Only 5-10% make it to their breeding age of three years old. A really old redtail in the wild makes it to about 8 years. In captivity they make it to 30 or more. There's still a mortality rate in falconry of course, but it's closer to 5%. Most of my birds are trapped as immature birds, and later released once they hit breeding age. Falconry could be considered the one true "green" sport. It has zero impact on the birds as a whole, and zero impact on the quarry a a whole. "My" birds would be hunting and killing, living and dying, even if they weren't "my" birds.
Bald eagles fair better nowadays, mainly due to them being such an item of interest and effort, and the heightened awareness amongst the public this has generated. By getting so much of their food through scavenging and thievery (they're a lot like pretty seagulls), they may also avoid many of the injuries that would kill a redtail. A redtail may kill and eat a squirrel, but if it hurts itself in the process, it'll die. It could be as simple as a bite on the foot that gets infected. My birds go to the vet when they need it, and get fed whether they succeed in the field or not. Failing to learn to hunt well enough, fast enough, in addition to injuries suffered in the process is responsible for a large percentage of raptor mortality.
What about those that die along the way? Should they be saved if possible? I tend to say no! Allowing the "less fit" to survive and breed goes against the grain of "natural selection". When it comes to raptor rehabilitation, I'm skeptical of at least some of it. For one, the low number of birds that are rehabbed aren't likely to effect the overall population. If they're "less fit" than other specimens, is it proper to save them and let them breed? If the overall population isn't in danger, and only a small percentage are "saved", what's the point? In a case where the bird loses mobility, what is the quality of life going to be? If it's really "upset" enough by it's inability to fly, does an occasional ride on a glider make up for the hours/days/weeks/months/years of doing nothing but sitting on a perch? Again, I don't attribute the emotion of "upset" to these birds... To be fair, roughly 65% of the birds I later release "should" fall into the "less fit" bracket, by odds. Even though they're of breeding age, will they breed? Will they make it an additional year on their own? Does it matter? I don't know... From what I know of these birds, hunting matters, since that's what they do. The flying part is just they way they travel. Flying isn't a novelty to them, like it is to us.
Two possible reasons for rehab come to mind. One, saving birds that are low in overall population to allow them to breed sounds good. Another would be to use them for educating the public. Bald eagles are no longer endangered, so I don't see the purpose in saving them to breed. I'm not really all that much in favor of using crippled birds as educational birds (for a few reasons), but I don't think completely healthy raptors should be kept as pets, or just for educational purposes either, so I make concessions there. I don't think the public learns more from a crippled raptor than from a healthy one. In actual practice, I can/could show them more with a healthy raptor.
So, when it comes to hang glider rides, I think it looks nice, and pulls at the heart-strings a little. But I think the bird gets nothing at all from it (but isn't hurt by it either). Doing it means something to the people who do it, and to the people that watch it. But, if the guy was only doing it for the bird, I don't see why he filmed it and posted it on the internet though, either, unless maybe he's trying to raise funds so he can buy some critters to feed the eagle with?
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Great read MTN! Thanks for your time and knowledge on this subject, it has been educational for me and brought subjects up which I never would have thought about.
S!
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awesome - thanks for the link!