Hank the Tank, and a Cautious Eagle - UPDATE February 22, 2022
Bald Eagle flying
Bald eagle flying
On this "Twosday" 2/22/22, we have two topics. I’ve heard so much about Hank the Tank lately that I had to call my friend Ann Bryant who heads The Bear League around Lake Tahoe where Hank lives. Ann is one of my heroes for all she does for bears. She is prominently featured in the North American Bear Center for doing what many others would not. If a bear is not welcome denning under a house, little Ann shoos it out. We have worked together, co-authored a scientific paper together, and I serve on her advisory board for The Bear League. Hank the Tank developed a bad habit. He is entering people’s houses now in the middle of winter to find food. How does the public feel about that? She said she has received about 300 calls with all but one wanting Hank saved. She said the public loves him, and the police feel the same way. Ann and her Bear League team have lined up 9 wildlife refuge facilities willing to take Hank whenever California wildlife officials give the okay. One of the refuges said it would even build a big, beautiful refuge enclosure especially for him. Hank’s bad habit of going into people’s houses is something we don’t see here in Eagles Nest Township where people have fed bears since 1961. Hank showed that there can be an exception to everything. I don’t know the whole story behind Hank’s behavior, but he will be the rare example used by people who claim such behavior is what happens if a bear loses fear of people. It is what the Minnesota DNR claimed in 2014 would happen for years into the future with bears that lost their fear of people here in Eagles Nest, but it is has not.
It was good to hear from Ann that Lake Tahoe is another community that has made a positive shift in its values about bears as they learned about them. In fact, shifting values about bears and various carnivores was the theme of the November/December issue of Wildlife Professional Magazine that is published by The Wildlife Society. Its cover showed a crowd of adults and children standing on a dirt road watching and photographing a bear that was maybe 30-40 feet in front of them. Everyone looked happy and interested—anything but terrified. No one had a gun. The magazine cover asked “How should wildlifers respond to shifting public values?”
Shifts like that are such a change from what I saw when I arrived in Minnesota in fall 1968. Bears in Minnesota were varmints to be killed by anyone in any way in any number at any time. I had been brought here by Professor Albert Wendell Erickson and his sponsors Wally and Mary Lee Dayton to make a difference for bears. What happened next was one of the biggest joys of my life, but that’s a longer story for another day.
Bald eagle waiting
Bald eagle waiting
Today, the biggest wildlife highlight actually started yesterday with a five-pound frozen lump of turkey treats that I put outside my desk window. I needed “a Pretty Girl fix!” as Deborah DeSalvo said she wanted (in the daily update comments on Facebook) last night. The fox didn’t show, but to my big surprise, a bald eagle swooped within five feet of it and cautiously soared to the top of a big white pine to watch for nearly an hour until it saw me in a window and flew away. Bald eagles are notoriously cautious, and I thought it had moved on. The big surprise today came with a sudden flurry of wings just ten feet from my desk window as the eagle snatched away the heavy lump without landing. Five pounds is about half the weight of an eagle and the lump somehow slipped out of its claws before it reached the edge of the yard. The show was on. The eagle circled around to a low branch of a white pine (top photo) to watch for about an hour as it did the day before. This time it did not see me and fly away. It flew to a closer tree (second photo) and watched some more. I was waiting to click a picture of it swooping with its wings spread in dark contrast against the snow. I thought it would land. The phone rang just before it swooped in and stretched out its feet to snatch the lump as it flew by and then disappeared across the lake. No picture, but it was interesting to see how cautious the eagle was each step of the way. It made me remember something that raven-expert Bernd Heinrich had written about eagles cautiously waiting to land at carcasses until ravens showed it was safe. Maybe next time there will be ravens so I can see what Bernd was talking about.
Thank you for all you do,
Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center
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