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If you're the dean of American bald eagles, your life should conclude more gloriously than by getting hit by a car in the middle of nowhere while you're dining on a freshly-killed rabbit.

A name wouldn't be a bad idea either. But that's the fate that struck 0629-03142, officials have determined. He was the oldest living bald eagle -- 38 years old -- when he died in upstate New York a week and a half ago, 

He was one of us -- a Minnesotan who, like a lot of Minnesotans, moved away at a young age after an initial upbringing in northern Minnesota in the mid-'70s.

“We hired a tree climber, who climbed up white pines, 80 to 90 feet, to eagle’s nests, put a chick in cloth bag and lowered it by rope to the ground,” Carrol Henderson, former head of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources nongame wildlife program, tells the 

. “We always took just one chick from a nest, and left a healthy chick.”

There weren't many eagles around when 0629-03142 was caught at Puposky Lake (north of Bemidji, Minn.), banded, and then sent to upstate New York to repopulate that area, according to 

 male eagles in New York state when 0629-03142 arrived.

"When we banded 03142 on August 5, 1977 and had no idea how very special and significant this young bald eagle would become to our nascent bald eagle restoration program," Peter Nye, retired DEC Wildlife Biologist, who spearheaded New York's Bald Eagle Restoration Program, 

 "Based on his recent recovery near this site, we have to assume he has been the resident male, breeding here for the past 34 years. That's quite a stretch, and likely a record in itself. His longevity, 38 years, although ingloriously cut short by a motor vehicle, is also a National record for known life-span of a wild bald eagle."

By federal law, 0629-03142 will be sent to the National Eagle Repository in Colorado, where its feathers will be plucked to be used by Native Americans and Alaskan Indians for religious and cultural purposes.

NewsCut

Bob Collins

Author

If you're the dean of American bald eagles, your life should conclude more gloriously than by getting hit by a car while you're dining on a freshly-killed rabbit.

Nation’s oldest bald eagle — a Minnesotan — dead at 38

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