Bald+Eagle


 * Journal of Eddie the Eagle:**
 * May 10, 1903**

Eddie the Eagle I arrived at the National Zoological Park today after a long transcontinental train trip from Yellowstone National Park to Washington D.C. I wish I could tell you that I made that trip for pleasure or that I traveled first class. But I can’t. Humans abducted me from my home in Yellowstone. Then, they imprisoned me in a cage at the National Zoological Park. I will never again see my wife, Edwina, with whom I mated for life. Instead, I will die in exile and captivity thousands of miles from my Yellowstone home. Everything started to unravel for me a week ago. I was hunting for fish when I saw a trout lying on the bank of a lake. I should have known that some human was using the trout as bait to capture me. But, I couldn’t resist my instinct to scavenge for food. I swooped down to seize the fish with my talons. As soon as I did, a trap ensnared me, and I couldn’t escape. Things only became worse after that. The trapper sold me to an agent of the National Zoological Park in Rock Creek, a town near Washington D.C. That agent, in turn, sedated, crated, and transported me to a poorly ventilated train car with merciless efficiency. He then shipped me on the transcontinental railroad from Montana to North Dakota, and across the Middle West all the way to Washington D.C. Northern Pacific Railroad Map, Circa 1900 Pennsylvania Railroad Map, circa 1899 The only good news is that I arrived alive this morning in Washington D.C., if only barely so. As a bald eagle and a symbol for America, I deserve better treatment than this! Now, I only feel like I signify human's cruelty to animals.

A horse drawn wagon took me on a bumpy ride from the train station to the National Zoological Park. On the way there, we passed a loud and strange-looking vehicle that the driver called a horseless carriage. He said that there were only a few of these horseless carriages, and that they would never be popular. He didn’t like them because they made his horses nervous. 1903 "Puritan" Horseless Carriage When we arrived at the National Zoological Park, one of the zoo keepers had trouble carrying the cage into which I had been temporarily placed. He started complaining about handling “live animals” like me. And he then scared me to death by telling another worker about how he had worked for George Brown Goode at the Smithsonian National Museum where there are three million stuffed animal specimens. I was certain he was taking me to a taxidermist. However, I breathed a deep sigh of relief when he released me instead into the newly constructed Eagle cage pictured below.

The Eagle Cage at the National Zoological Park soon after its completions, 1903. This relief, however, soon turned to sadness when the reality of my confinement set in. I realized that the blue sky, big trees, beautiful rivers, and tall mountains of Yellowstone are no longer my home. Instead, I am a prisoner in a cage that is only about 30 feet high and 24 feet wide. As I will never be free to fly outside this cage again, how can I be a symbol of American liberty?


 * Journal of Eddie the Eagle:**
 * May 11, 1903**

This morning the other bald and golden eagles in the cage tried to welcome me. They were really nice, and they even let me eat first when the park attendant brought our food this morning. It was definitely strange not to hunt for my own breakfast. I guess I will just have to get used to depending on humans for my food. However, it hurts my pride to do so. As a bald eagle, I have always enjoyed hunting on my own or stealing food from other animals. The other eagles were talking about the formation of the National Zoological Park. Bob, a bald eagle who had lived near the Gallatin River in Yellowstone, reminded everyone that Congress approved a Commission to create a National Zoological Park in 1889. I added that the original purpose of the park was “the advancement of science and the instruction and recreation of the people.” As I did, I remembered how I thought the park would be a source of good for humans and animals alike. I now know I was an idealistic fool to place so much trust in humans. Back in 1889, Samuel Pierpont Langley, the third secretary of the Smithsonian, inspired me with hope. When he lobbied Congress to establish “a home and a city of refuge for the vanishing [animal] races of the continent,” I envisioned a park where wild American animals, like me, could prosper and breed, and scientists could study and protect our future with their discoveries. I admired Langley because he was a scientist. And I felt we had something in common because he wanted to build the first motorized airplane and even studied the flight of birds to help him in that process. Samuel Pierpont Langley S.P. Langley and his "Aerodome" Smithsonian Institution, circa 1903 I idealistically supported Langley’s plans even though there were warning signs that Langley might not succeed. I knew Langley wanted Yellowstone to be an important source of the wild animals for this new national park. And while the Senate supported Langley’s plans for the park. I also understood that a majority in the House of Representatives wanted to create a zoo designed for the enjoyment of visitors, not scientific research and preservation of endangered species. Nevertheless, I ignored these troubling signs because I still trusted humans and believed in the Conservation Movement that was becoming more popular in America at this time.

I knew that the near extinction of bison could happen to other wild animals in Yellowstone. And although humans were responsible for slaughtering millions of bison, I was encouraged by the example of William Temple Hornaday who would become Langley’s assistant and the superintendent of the National Zoological Park until he resigned from that position due to an argument with Langley.

Hornaday was a former hunter who became a dedicated animal conservationist after he traveled out West on a Smithsonian expedition and experienced first hand the slaughter of the American bison. Following this encounter, he wrote an article that blamed the extermination of the American bison, in part, on “man’s reckless greed, his wanton destructiveness, and improvidence.” Given the example of the American bison, Hornaday also warned, “With such a lesson before our eyes … who will dare to say that there will be an elk, moose, caribou, mountain sheep, mountain goat, or black-tailed deer left alive in the United States in a wild state fifty years from this fate, ay, or even twenty-five?” William Temple Hornaday As the number of bald eagles has been rapidly declining as well, I was glad at the time that the majority of the Senate and men such as Langley and Hornaday wished to establish a National Zoological Park where endangered American species can live and prosper. For too long I felt, Americans had valued wild animals only when we were dead. So, I thought it was time for Americans to realize that wild animals are more important alive than dead and that we are not just objects to be hunted. Just as far too many bison were slaughtered for meat and warm clothing, the once great numbers of bald eagles have dwindled as men have hunted us for our feathers and deprived us of our natural habitats. I idealistically hoped that the establishment of the National Zoological Park would provide us another sanctuary from the mass murder of our species. As the years passed, however, I changed from being an idealistic youth into a complacent adult. I knew that “endangered species” indigenous to the United States were to be transported to this new National Zoological Park in a few years. And as I was flying in 1894, I witnessed what I would later learn was the first beaver being taken from Yellowstone to the National Zoological Park. However, when no one came to take me, I grew complacent and lost all interest in the National Zoological Park. Edwina and I mated. We had hatchlings. And we loved living in our beautiful Yellowstone nest high in a tree overlooking the water and the mountains. Edwina and I at Home in Yellowstone Yellowstone Park However, all that has changed now. Where I was once idealistic about the National Zoological Park, I am now just bitter and angry that I allowed my idealism and then my complacency to blind me to the worst of human nature. The existence of good human beings such as Langley and Hornaday still gives me hope that things will get better sometime in the future. But things are hopeless for me. I have been captured and placed in captivity. And I know I will never escape to return to my Edwina and home in Yellowstone. **Journal of Eddie the Eagle:**   **May 12, 1903** I explored my cage today. On the top branch of the scrawny tree in my cage, there is a perch from which I can see the grounds of the National Zoological Park.

I am sickened by the extent to which the park has failed to reach the potential Langley envisioned for it as a protected wildlife refuge. Langley only wanted a small part of the park opened to the public, with the remainder to be a preserve where American wild animals such as bison and elk could freely graze, breed, and prosper. However, from my vantage point, I saw that the public has access to the entire zoo and that animals, like me, are crowded into unhealthy cages in what humans call “menagerie-style exhibiting.” One of the other eagles told me that it was even worse in the old eagle cage, which Langley referred to in 1902 as “unsightly [and} an almost repulsive object.” This new cage may be better than the old one, but it remains unsightly and repulsive to me. From my perch, I also saw that this so-called national zoo contains exotic animals such as zebras, tigers, polar bears, and lions from other continents. There are even Indian elephants named Dunk and Gold Dust here. Langley wanted this park to remind Congress and the president of the importance of saving native American animals from extinction. So, why does it now include animals from other countries? I guess American exceptionalism just applies to the people in America, not the animals that are native to America. I don’t understand what happened to Langley because he is still running the show here. One of the other bald eagles in the cage explained to me that Langley’s original plans for the park changed when the Senate lost its battle over the nature of the park with the House of Representatives. Because the House of Representatives wanted the zoo to devote itself more to entertainment than to scientific study and the preservation of endangered American species, Langley’s plans were defeated. He wrote the Smithsonian that as Congress had chosen to “substitute … a scientific and national park … for a local pleasure ground and menagerie … the provision of preserves for large herds of native American animals, which formed an essential feature of the original plan [was now] to be wholly abandoned.” When Langley lost, all the animals at the National Zoological Park lost as well. **Journal of Eddie the Eagle:**
 * May 13, 1903**

Although the park isn’t what I expected, it is still beautiful in its own way. There are no tall mountains, large lakes, or geothermal features here as there are in Yellowstone. Nevertheless, there are trees, creeks, and green spaces on this one hundred and sixty-three acre tract of land. And while the park is near Washington D.C., it still has a natural setting removed from the buildings and monuments of our nation’s capitol. Visitors to the south ford of Rock Creek in the National Zoological Park However, the park is not as beautiful as it could have been. Langley worked with America’s greatest landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmstead, the Andover graduate famous for designing Central Park in New York City. Just as Olmstead created a beautiful environment in Central Park, he wanted to do the same thing at the National Zoological Park. Nevertheless, most of Olmstead’s plans for the park were never used because they were either too expensive to implement or Langley did not like them. Frederick Law Olmstead From my vantage point, it is also clear that the National Zoological Park doesn’t really succeed in duplicating the habitats in which animals live. I heard one of the zoo keepers describe the architectural style of the zoo as “picturesque.” That’s a fancy word for making things appear natural. The problem is that Langley does not have the funding to make this work because the District of Columbia does not give him enough money. For example, no one can mistake my cage for the majestic forests in Yellowstone that were once my home. That is why Yellowstone is far superior to the National Zoological Park. There, humans can see bison, moose, elk, otters, trumpeter swans, coyotes, foxes, badgers, bighorn sheep, and bald eagles in their natural environment without the need to create phony habitats.


 * Journal of Eddie the Eagle:**
 * May 14, 1903**

Humans come on streetcars to see me every day. I must admit that it is strange to be in such close contact with them. Back in Yellowstone, we hardly saw any humans. And when we did, we had to worry that they were hunters trying to track us down. These humans are different. They come to see us, not to capture or kill us. They think we are the wild animals. But I know better. Humans are the real wild animals. Where bald eagles kill to survive, humans hunt and subject animals to captivity for pleasure.

Just as the humans watch me, I watch them. I am amazed by their peculiar appearance. In fact, I feel sorry for them. Except for their big brains, God wasn’t very kind to them. Where I am strong and have beautiful feathers, they are weak and only have fragile skin. And where I can fly, they can only walk or run on the ground. Visiting School Children at the Turn of the Century(Take a look at their "peculiar appearance)  However, I did hear some humans talking today about Orville Wright who recently made the first sustained motorized aircraft flight this year. I wonder how Langley feels. He wanted to be the first to fly a heavier than air aircraft. But Wright beat him to it. Langley must be angry because he is a scientist and Wright is just a bicycle mechanic. I told the other eagles about Orville Wright. They were shocked. They said that humans were dangerous before they could fly. Now, they will be even more dangerous because they can fly. However, we all agreed that human flight would never be as good as bird flight because we only need our wings whereas humans depend upon machines to fly.  Orville Wright in Flying Machine Crowd Waving 1903 Vintage Postcard
 * Journal of Eddie the Eagle:**
 * May 15, 1903**

This morning my new best friend Edwin the Eagle and I saw a little girl carrying something she called her Teddy Bear. According to this girl’s mother, this Teddy Bear is a new product made for the first time this year. When I saw it, my first instinct was to kill it. But then I heard the mother saying it was a stuffed bear named after President Teddy Roosevelt. That made my friend Edwin angry. He said, “Roosevelt might be the president. But we’re the symbol of the United States. So, why isn’t there a stuffed animal named after us?” I couldn’t agree more.

Teddy Bear First Made 1903 **Journal of Eddie the Eagle:**
 * May 16, 1903**

Today, a father and his son were talking in front of my cage about a man named Harry Houdini. He is supposed to be great magician who is an expert at picking locks. He even escaped from a police station in Halvemaansteeg in Amsterdam last January. Maybe Houdini will come to the park one day and free me. That way I could do my own magical disappearing act and return to Yellowstone.

Harry Houdini But, there is no magical solution for me. I live in an age of Social Darwinism where humans dominate animals because they are more powerful than we are. Besides, we are animals and most humans don’t think we have any rights at all. So, neither Harry Houdini nor any human is going to save me. I heard the other day that Langley originally wanted our new eagle cage to possibly even have gilding. Langley may have had good intentions. But, there is nothing golden about my cage. Like the Gilded Age in which humans live, the gilding Langley talked about is only a surface layer that hides the rottenness that lies beneath it. This park may have originally been designed to benefit animals. But it lost that purpose when it became a zoo, not a preserve dedicated to the breeding and protection of native American wild animals. Now it is nothing more than a prison from which I will never escape.

As we wild animals were in America far before any Europeans settled here, we have a right to be free. Hopefully, humans will understand that one day.