Spirit!

Spirit is a male Golden Eagle hatched & banded near Harpers Ferry, WV in 2002.  He was found in February 2003 by a man and his 5 year old stepson on the ground on top a mountain above Fairlea, WV (Greenbrier County).  Besides being bruised all over his body and having a concussion, he had a badly broken & infected back right talon (Halux) and was starving.  We believe that as a young male he strayed into the breeding territory of an adult male and he lost the ensuing territorial fight. The 5 year old boy immediately named him Spirit.  In order to save Spirit’s life we had to amputate the infected digit all the way to the foot which makes it impossible for him to hunt for his own food.  He is super intelligent and very well behaved. Golden Eagles can live from 30 - 50 years and historically have always been in the mountains of West Virginia.  Weighing in at almost 7 lbs,  Spirit's wingspan is 6½  feet.  In the wild, his favorite foods would be  rabbits, rats, groundhogs, large birds up to and including cranes and geese. Goldens have also been known to take deer.  Here at TRAC, he is fed rats, rabbits, the occasionally careless squirrel, and on special occasions, venison.  In 2007, he will be approaching reproductive maturity along with his adult plumage. This section of our web site is a pictoral history of how Spirit joined TRAC.

Surgery  (page 2) Rehabilitation (page 3) Cage Construction (page 4) Spirit's Big Day at TRAC (page 5)