RUSH: Do you remember the story we did out of Homer, Alaska, on the banning of the eagle feeding? I guess tour operators would have people go up to Homer with cameras and you could feed the eagles up there and get close and get pictures of them. And not long ago the city council of Homer banned all this, and the reason, it was reported — now, help me out with my memory here. The reason they did it was, it was hurting the eagles, it was demeaning the eagles. That’s right, they were turning the national symbol of this country, the national bird, into a blue state welfare recipient. But that wasn’t what was happening, because the eagles performed. I mean, they weren’t just, you know, filled with sloth out there. They weren’t just lazy bums. They were actually performing. They are allowing their pictures to be taken, and essentially posing. Well, there was one exception to the ban on eagle feeding up there, and we’re talking about hundreds of eagles. The one exception was a woman named Jean Keene, and she’s the eagle lady, and she’s 80. It didn’t mention much about her in the story. Well, I got in the mail today, her book. I got the eagle lady’s book. It’s a combination autobiography and photo journal, and it has some of the most amazing pictures of her eagles and where she lives.
She drives a pickup. She lives in a trailer right out there in the area, and these eagles just flock every morning in the winter, and have been for 25 years. The pictures in here are just amazing. I got a letter from the person who wrote the text in the book named Cary Anderson. I wasn’t surprised to learn that there is a real story about the banning of the feeding of eagles that wasn’t told in the AP account. Mr. Anderson writes, “This controversy was started and fueled by a man up here who feeds flocks of sandhill cranes on his Homer-area property. Also keeps Canada geese at his home. He clips their wings so they can’t fly away. One day, a bald eagle took a swipe at his geese and his cranes. A goose was killed by an eagle. This made the guy spitting mad so he worked tirelessly to vilify eagles. He went so far as to claim eagles might even attack the local children. In the end, with practically no community support, he successfully lobbied city council members to outlaw eagle feeding. Thankfully he was not successful in shutting down the eagle lady who has fed surplus fish to a gathering of hundreds of eagles every winter morning for more than 25 years. ”
I wish I could show you the pictures in here. You can get the book. I’ll put a link on the website where you can go — I haven’t gone to the website because I’ve got the book. It’s not a big book, but it’s exceptionally well done picture-wise. It’s just an amazing thing to look at these eagles up close and to see how close they’re willing to get to the eagle lady. I’m not surprised. We get this story, “Oh, we’re doing this for the eagles. We’re trying to protect the eagle.” The eagle has become a welfare recipient. It’s a national bird. We can’t allow this to happen. It turns out there’s some local rabble-rouser who got upset because an eagle killed one of his geese. Geese who, by the way, can’t fly because he’s clipped their wings. So he tried to create a panic.
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