COSTA MESA : Elementary Students Get to Eye Eagle

Elementary school children enjoyed a rare opportunity Wednesday to stand a few inches from a bald eagle--the national bird and an endangered species.

More than 40 children were able to crowd around a 5-year-old eagle named Buddy, who suffers from an unusual mental problem.

Buddy doesn’t know he’s supposed to act like an eagle, and he actually prefers human company.

Buddy was apparently snatched from his nest at birth and learned to recognize humans as his parents, explained Dick Griffin, administrator of the Alaska Raptor Rehabilitation Center, who brought Buddy to Kline School.

Buddy stood patiently on his handler’s glove as schoolchildren lined up to be photographed next to him. The children clapped when Buddy ruffled his feathers and they gasped when he spread his wings to their six-foot span.

Griffin said an eagle would normally be frightened by a group of people, thinking they were enemies about to attack.

“Why can’t Buddy live in the wild?” one child wanted to know. Because Buddy does not know how to hunt and would beg food from people, Griffin answered. He said that Buddy, who has keen eyesight, might spot a child eating a hamburger and swoop down to land on the child’s arm to take a bite of the burger.

That kind of behavior could frighten humans and cause Buddy to be killed, Griffin said.

When the raptor care group found Buddy a few years ago, the members’ initial plan was to care for the animal and then release it back to the wild. That’s what the nonprofit group does for about 50 bald eagles each year.

But veterinarians soon discovered that Buddy did not know how to fly, Griffin said.

Trainers at the raptor center had to teach Buddy to fly by rocking his perch, center veterinarian Vicky Vosburg told the schoolchildren. That way, Buddy learned to flap his wings to keep his balance. Later, when trainers pushed him off his low perch, he learned to fly instead of dropping to the ground.

But Buddy has never learned to hunt, Griffin said. He likes to eat salmon bought at the grocery store, but when taken to a stream filled with live salmon, the eagle watches the fish swim by and does not even try to catch them.

Buddy is about two feet tall and weighs only eight pounds. As with all eagles, many of his bones are hollow, making him light for flight.

The raptor center takes Buddy on tours to show the damage that humans can do to birds, Griffin said, as well as to foster appreciation for the bald eagle. Buddy also visited two Newport Beach schools Wednesday.

Students at Kline presented Griffin with a $355.50 check for Buddy’s care. The money had been raised through sales of arts and crafts. Buddy could live another 50 years at the nonprofit center.

Griffin said there are about 40,000 bald eagles in Alaska and perhaps 20,000 in the rest of the country. Locally, the birds can be seen on Catalina Island and near Big Bear Lake, he said. Eagles also migrate through the Southland.