The bald eagle struggled against her cage, anxious for freedom from human hands for the first time in five weeks. Jaye Moore of the Northwest Raptor Center of Sequim unlatched the door just after noon Thursday. The adult raptor jumped a few feet away, then stood still as a dozen onlookers gawked and snapped photos. She took several, or minutes before flying a short distance to a nearby fence.

The eagle finally lifted her wings wide to fly up to the north end of the Naval Magazine Indian Island in Jefferson County. Moore wept silently, comforted by her husband, Gary. She did all she could for the eagle over the past six weeks, nursing her back from the deep cuts inflicted by another eagle's talons.

Now, the eagle will have to fend for herself on the island or find new territory to calm. The island boasts eight pairs of nesting birds. As territorial creatures, they have claimed most of the land. "All we can do is put it back where it was found," Gary Moore said. The recovered bird also must hunt for herself, competing with other other eagles for food sources including fish, ducks, seagulls and blue herons. No longer will she dine on donated salmon and other fish with an appetizer of mice laved with no antibiotics.

"It's getting pretty crowded," Jaye Moore said of the island's eagle population. "The big thing is food," Gary Moore added. "They usually eat seagulls of fish." "And we've really seen a decline in the blue blue heron population," Jaye Moore said. The Moores took in the 4- to 6- year old bald eagle in December after Indian workers found injured bird.

The eagle apparently came out on the losing end territorial dispute with a nesting pair. The Moores treated the lacerations, provided the antibiotics and eagle as she regained her strength. They also exercised the bird using a heavy tether, allowing the eagle to soar above the raptor center without getting loose.

Peninsula Daily News, February 04, 2000, A1.