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Family Reunion Festival came with a special surprise this year when Tribal members were the first to be introduced to the Aviary’s recently hatched golden eagle, Kishko.
Kishko was one of two eaglets to hatch at the Aviary this spring after two of the Aviary’s golden eagles paired.
“It’s very rare,” Aviary Manager Jennifer Randell said. “It’s truly a blessing.”
Pairing and nesting
After the Aviary’s glove-trained golden eagle, Myanabe, walked on in 2020, Randell and her sister, Aviary Assistant Bree Dunham, were not ready to take on another bird.
“It took us a couple years to get ready to think maybe we could have that relationship with an eagle,” Randell said. “I can’t really explain that relationship. It’s a very special, honorable thing when an eagle has that trust in you.”
However, after a couple years, the South Dakota Zoo had a male golden eagle that needed placement.
“And the paperwork does say male golden eagle,” Randell said. “We went ahead and traveled to get this eagle, and when we saw inside the kennel, her feet are bigger than my hand. She’s huge. We knew it was a female.”
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The eagle seemed to have a very calm personality, so they decided to glove train her and tethered her with another golden eagle that has been with the Aviary about six years.
“Golden eagles will learn from watching other golden eagles,” Dunham said. “So we put them tethered together so she could watch the other golden, since he was used to being tethered.”
That went really well for a few days, they said.
“And then for the first time ever, in 14 years of living on this property, we heard the most beautiful sound,” Randell said. “They’re at the end of their leashes, almost beak to beak, and they’re singing to each other.”
The sisters say they try to let the eagles run the show and evolve with what they need, and so they released both golden eagles from their tethers the day after the female laid the first egg of her life — though she was not yet mature, so they knew it wasn’t fertile.
“The paperwork does still say ‘he.’ Clearly not a ‘he,’” Randell said. “If we had any doubt, we knew then.”
In the winter, the eagles began building a nest, which is highly unusual in captivity. Golden eagles in the wild live in remote areas, away from people and foot traffic.
Dunham and Randell expected the female to lay an egg in March or April, but nothing happened until the end of April, when she laid two eggs.
“Everyone said great news, but no way you’ll have fertile eggs the first year they’re together. They’re injured. There’s all kinds of challenges,” Randell said.
“The eagles don’t read the books or listen to the experts,” Dunham added.
Despite how rare it is, even in the wild, for a first-year pair to have a successful nest, the first egg hatched after 41 days, and the second egg hatched after 44 days on May 24.
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Changing plans
When the eaglets first hatched, Dunham and Randell called Chairman John “Rocky” Barrett and Vice-Chairman Linda Capps right away. Both expressed a desire to release the eagles, if possible.
“Unfortunately, we had the worst-case scenario,” Randell said, and release became impossible, with the larger, female chick hatching first and growing aggressive toward the younger eagle. “He was already three days behind her, plus he was a male.”
Randell and Dunham also think the birds hatching late, when the weather was hotter, might have put stress on the babies and the first-year parents.
“It was pretty hard, because we didn’t want to intervene. We were trying to let those parents have that experience and possibly release,” Randell said. “But we also didn’t want it to go too far where we were putting those chicks in jeopardy. This is a once-in-a-lifetime situation.”
Randell and Dunham monitored the eagles via video, and on the third day, they noticed the smaller eaglet did not seem to be getting food. They consulted Bill Voelker with Sia: Comanche Eagle Center, who has raised hundreds of eagles over more than 40 years, and he advised them to go in and feed the eaglet.
After both chicks had been fed, everything seemed to go well at first, but on the third day, they noticed the older chick was aggressively pecking the younger chick.
“Our commute is about 3 minutes, and by the time we got down there, you couldn’t see him,” Randell said. “He was covered in nest material, and the parents were walking on him. So we really thought we were too late.”
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Since the bald eagles at the Aviary have fostered chicks and even hatched one of their own, they were experienced parents, and Randell and Dunham have never had to intervene before.
“I’ve never held a baby eagle in my life. I’ve never had to go in and get it,” Randell said. “So here we have this baby eagle. He fits in the palm of my hand, and he was just lifeless. We were both in tears. We thought we’d let it go too far.”
Fortunately, they were able to help him, and though the first couple days were touch and go, he did make it. However, putting him back in the nest with the parents was no longer an option.
“Once that sibling aggression starts, it doesn’t usually stop, and goldens are worse than other birds of prey in that usually one chick survives out of the nest and no others do,” Randell said. “The strongest survive.”
The older chick is still with the parents, and they hope to be able to release her if all goes well. For the younger chick, who has been named Kishko, or Second Born, Randell and Dunham set up an incubator in their home and took on full-time care.
“It’s a little bittersweet, because I feel like he should be out there flying free. But he also wouldn’t have made it if we hadn’t intervened. So we are more than honored to help raise him and give him a good life,” Randell said.
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Meeting Kishko
Kishko, still covered in fluffy white feathers, made his debut at Family Reunion Festival, where Tribal members were able to see and interact with him at the Cultural Heritage Center.
“It’s so exciting to be able to share with them, and we’ll be able to share this with the community from now on. This bird will be able to go to ceremony and to help heal people,” Randell said.
By mid-July, he had grown to about full size. When he was still growing, he was eating 12 mice and 16 quail per day, though that has tapered off as he’s getting older.
“I feel like we blinked and he’s grown,” Dunham said.
Randell and Dunham estimate he will start to learn to fly around 10 weeks old and then be soaring around 14 to 16 weeks old. Once his adult feathers have grown in, somewhere between 12 and 14 weeks, they’ll put anklets on him and begin training him on the glove. At that time, they estimate they’ll spend three to four hours per day glove-training him, and most of the rest of the day working with him to create good habits.
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Once it was clear Kishko couldn’t return to the nest, it also became important to get him used to being around different people and environments, from sounds, to clothing, to machines like coffee makers, so he’s not afraid.
“He thinks he’s a person,” Dunham said, explaining that Kishko is fully imprinted and doesn’t like other birds. “He won’t ever be with other birds, and that’s why it’s so important that he gets used to all of this, because that’s his reality from now on. He has to be around people.”
Once trained, they plan to have him present at Grand Entry, and the hope is to be able to let him fly in the arena at Festival, even if only from glove to glove.
“He has been hand-raised by people, and he got to meet a lot of our community and our people,” Randell said. “He’ll be with us for the rest of his life, so we want to give him the best life we possibly can.”
To learn more about the Aviary and the eagles who live there, visit cpn.news/aviary.