Not too long ago while on vacation, I was taking a stroll along a marina when something usual in the distance caught my eye. There was a docked boat with something rather large fluttering around its mast. As I got closer, I realized that an eagle flapping its wings and struggling to fly away but it had somehow managed to entangle itself onto the tall mast of the boat. Yikes! I had no idea what to do but there was a yacht club office nearby. Maybe there would be someone there who would know what to do in such a situation?
I ran in and fortunately, I was greeted by a staff member. I quickly explained the situation to her and she looked at me calmly and said “do you know how many people come in here to tell me about that? It’s a decoy bird to keep other birds away.” Whoops. I was both relieved and incredibly embarrassed. A happy ending, I guess. But sadly, real eagles can and do get entangled sometimes and nobody knows how to go about rescuing them when they’re in hard to reach places.
And that’s what happened recently in Minnesota. Jason Galvin and his neighbours spotted an eagle, about 70 feet in the air, dangling from a tree. They actually thought that the eagle was dead but Jason used a pair of binoculars and saw that the bird was still breathing. So they called the police, the fire department, and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), but nobody was willing to come out to help. So Jason did something very unusual at his wife’s request.
You see, Jason is an army veteran having served two tours in Afghanistan, and his experience has made him one heck of a shot. So after getting clearance from the DNR, Jason grabbed his rifle and began shooting at the rope that was tying the eagle to the tree branch.
Watch the video below to see how this dramatic story unfolded and let us know what you think!
