U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u2019s National Forensics Laboratory<\/a>, which analyzed 417 electrocuted raptors from 13 species between 2000 and 2015, nearly 80 percent were bald or golden eagles.<\/p>\nKrysta Rogers, senior environmental scientist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Investigations Laboratory, examined the dead eagle.<\/p>\n
She found small burns on Hope\u2019s left foot pad and the back of her right leg. She also had singed feathers on both sides of her body, but especially on the right, where Rogers said the wing looked particularly damaged. She said most birds are electrocuted on utility poles, but Hope was electrocuted \u201cmid-span,\u201d where the wires dip between the poles. <\/p>\n
Melissa Subbotin, a spokesperson for PG&E, said the poles and wires near where the birds nested had been adapted with coverings and other safety features to make them safe for raptors. <\/p>\n
However, it appears the bird may have touched two wires mid-span. Subbotin said the utility company spaces lines at least 5 feet apart \u2014 a precaution it and other utility companies take to minimize raptor deaths. <\/p>\n
\u201cSince 2002, PG&E has made about 42,990 existing power poles and towers bird-safe,\u201d Subbotin said. The company has also retrofitted about 41,500 power poles in areas where bird have been injured or killed. <\/p>\n
In addition, she said, in 2024, the company replaced nearly 11,000 poles in designated \u201cRaptor Concentration Zones\u201d and built them to avian-safe construction guidelines.<\/p>\n
Doug Gillard, an amateur photographer and professor of anatomy and physiology at Life Chiropractic College West in Hayward, who has followed the Milpitas eagles for years, said while there is safety equipment near the school, it does not extend into the nearby neighborhood, where Hope was killed.<\/p>\n
Gillard said a photographer who lives in the neighborhood took a photo of the eagle hanging from the wires that Gillard has seen. The Times was unable to access the photo.<\/p>\n
Not far from the school is a marshy wetland, where ducks, geese and migrating birds come to rest and relax, a smorgasbord for a pair of eagles and their young. There are also fish in a nearby lake. <\/p>\n
Gillard said one of the nearby water bodies is stocked with trout, and that late fall is fishing season for the eagles. He said an army of photographers is currently hanging around the pond hoping to catch a snapshot of the father eagle catching a fish.<\/p>\n
Rogers said the bird was healthy. She had body fat, good muscle tone and two small feathers in her gut \u2014 presumably the remnants of a recent meal. She also had an enlarged ovary and visible oviduct \u2014 an avian fallopian tube \u2014 suggesting she was getting ready for breeding, which typically happens in January or February.<\/p>\n
Slavin, the principal, said that a day or two before the mother\u2019s death, he saw the couple preparing their nest, and saw a young female show up. \u201cIt was a very tense situation among the eagles,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Gillard, the photographer, said the \u201cgirlfriend\u201d has black feathers on her head and in her tail, suggesting she isn\u2019t quite five years old.<\/p>\n
Gillard and Slavin say they\u2019ve heard from residents there may have been some altercation between the mom and the interloper that sent Hope off the nest and into the wires that night.<\/p>\n
The young female remains at the scene, and is not only being \u201ctolerated\u201d by the father, but occasionally accompanies him on his fishing trips, Gillard said. <\/p>\n
Eagles tend to mate for life, but if one dies, the other will look for a new mate, Gillard said. If the female eagle sticks around, it will be the dad\u2019s third partner.<\/p>\n
Photographers can identify the father, who neighbors just call \u201cDad,\u201d by the damaged flexor tendon on his right claw, which makes it appear as if he is \u201cflipping the bird\u201d when he flies by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILPITAS, Calif.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0As scores of students swarmed out of their Milpitas elementary school on a recent afternoon, a lone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[42817,42816,42819,42815,42813,10801,2641,5178,42822,42821,48,52,51,42814,47,50,49,42820,13017,42818,21096],"class_list":{"0":"post-73094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-amateur-photographer","9":"tag-bird-death","10":"tag-body-part","11":"tag-doug-gillard","12":"tag-eagle","13":"tag-fish","14":"tag-foot","15":"tag-hope","16":"tag-kevin-slavin","17":"tag-krysta-rogers","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-la-headlines","20":"tag-la-news","21":"tag-live-wire","22":"tag-los-angeles","23":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","24":"tag-los-angeles-news","25":"tag-nest","26":"tag-power-line","27":"tag-school-mascot","28":"tag-utility-pole"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}