Nothing could stop avid animal lover, Arizona State Representative Bob Thorpe, from meeting and greeting a pair of recently hatched American Bald Eagle chicks. Thorpe (R, Flagstaff), was on hand to install leg identification bands and to collect growth data on three heathy 6-week old American Bald Eagle chicks today.
Thorpe, who is a member of the national Legislative Sportsmen Caucus, was part of a group of six AZ Game & Fish personnel, a U.S. Forest Service employee, a Coconino County employe, who traveled by car, boat and then hiked to the remote forest home of the Bald Eagle family located southeast of Flagstaff.
Grants from Arizona, the Federal government, APS, SRP and others help to identify and track the health and locations of several hundred Eagles living throughout Arizona.
According to AZ Game and Fish personnel, it was unusual to find three Eaglets, especially a larger than normal male, in their very large nest (located 100 feet up in a 300-year old Ponderosa pine tree), that has typically only had one or two chicks during past seasons.
The Eagles rely mainly on the 20,000 or more Rainbow Trout that Game and Fish stock into Flagstaff’s Lower Lake Mary, which is one of Arizona’s most productive lakes. Bald Eagles are opportunists, who will steal freshly caught fish from the smaller local northern AZ Osprey (Sea Eagles).
Thorpe said “It was such an honor to be with our AZ Game and Fish professionals today, they are simply terrific. And what a humbling, once in a lifetime opportunity, to actually hold a Bald Eagle, our national bird, I was thrilled.”
