The American Bald Eagle Festival will host two veterans from recent U.S. wars as part of its six-day celebration of America’s bird.
“To me, veterans and the eagle go hand in hand. This is a way we could say ‘thank you’ for putting your life on the line so the rest of us could sleep at night,” said Bill McRoberts, a volunteer for the American Bald Eagle Foundation who also works on veterans’ healing issues.
The 21st festival that starts Monday will include release of two or more rehabilitated eagles from Anchorage’s Bird Treatment and Learning Center, presentations on local and regional wildlife, and a banquet fundraiser finale Saturday night.
As of Monday, 107 visitors had registered for the festival, including 39 students from University of Alaska-Southeast.
The Alaska-based group Healing Hearts is paying for veterans Mike Page and Danny Quick to travel here. The eagle foundation is donating photo workshops and equipment and local businesses are covering meals, lodging and transportation.
McRoberts said he’s been trying for years to bring veterans to town for the festival and that participation by Healing Hearts is making that happen. “This will be recurring every year. I hope to have six vets next year. I’ve had a lot of people say they would help any way they could.”
Cheryl McRoberts, who organizes the festival as executive director of the eagle foundation, said she’s encouraged that as many as three local restaurants will be open for this year’s festival.
With only a solitary dinner restaurant open last year, the festival lost some regular attendees, McRoberts said. This year, she said, the state’s delay in posting the ferry schedule forced some would-be visitors to cancel trips.
“The schedule is a good one for us, but it came out too late. To come here from far away, people have to book their (plane) tickets early to get a good price, but without a ferry schedule, they’re not going to spend that money and get stuck in Juneau. Hopefully, next year they’ll come back,” McRoberts said.
At the festival Tuesday, local guide, photographer and author Joe Ordonez will present a slide show, including images from his new book, “Where Eagles Gather: The Story of the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve.”
The 128-page, self-published hardback features narrative as well as photos Ordonez has taken during the past 20 years in the preserve and within a 150-mile range of it.
“I realized there wasn’t a book about the bald eagle preserve. I’m a storyteller and there’s an interesting story about the creation of the preserve. I want to tell the story in photographs and words,” Ordonez said. He’ll have signed copies of his book available for purchase.
Also on Tuesday, state Fish and Game biologist Kevin White will discuss his 10 years of mountain goat research. White has been tracking goat populations along Lynn Canal since 2005. His findings include a drop in the number of goats from 1,130 in 2006 to 600 in 2010.
Wednesday’s presentations include Oregon State University master’s student Yasaman Shakeri’s research on how bears affect seed dispersal and small mammal populations in coastal ecosystems. Through their scat, bears disperse many fruiting plant species, benefitting small mammals.
Wayne Price, a master carver from Haines who has launched a rebirth of interest in Tlingit maritime traditions, will speak Wednesday evening. He’ll bring a dugout canoe he’s working on and will speak about his work as a tool for reaching young people with a message of strength and hope.
As for the festival’s main attraction, Pam Randles of the Takshanuk Watershed Council said ground counts she and local students have conducted weekly since mid-September reached 544 birds last week.
The eagles have followed a typical migration pattern here, following fall runs of salmon from the Chilkoot River, then to the Klehini and finally to the Chilkat. The return of eagles appears to still be building in numbers, she said. “I don’t think we’ve peaked yet. We’ve got a few more weeks.”
Road counts have gone as high as 1,400 birds and aerial counts of eagles made during the 1980s here counted more than 3,000 birds on occasion.
“The total number is higher than our count. We don’t see them all, counting from the road. Up the Tsirku and Klehini, we don’t see. Our counts aren’t the high counts. They’re a way of making a comparison,” Randles said.
Randles, who also represents the Alaska Chilkoot Bear Foundation, will make a Thursday presentation about brown bears of the Chilkoot River.
Other featured speakers of the festival will include state park ranger Travis Russell, on the Division of State Parks’ role in managing the preserve; Lindsay Caskenette, manager of visitors services, on the Yukon Wildlife Preserve; and local archaeologist Anastasia Wiley on the recent discovery of a human skull near 7 Mile Haines Highway.
Eagle foundation founder Dave Olerud will lead a tour of the foundation Wednesday afternoon; the foundation’s raptor curator Chloe Goodson and ornithologist Al Batt will guide a birding outing around town Thursday.
A festival sketch class, “Avian Art and Anatomy,” presented by Samantha Wilson and Leia Minch, is featured in Arts Outlook on page 7 of this newspaper.
Bill McRoberts and Marty Fowler will lead the festival’s photo workshops. The eagle release is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, at the preserve gazebo and parking area near 19 Mile Haines Highway. The festival will include a square dance Friday night and a commemorative postage stamp cancellation at the post office during festival days.
For the full schedule, see page 4 of this week’s CVN or visit the eagle foundation website, http://www.baldeagles.org.