Amazing Result in Rescue of Eagles With Tangled Talons

Sue Stamy, who has been rehabilitating raptors for 24 years, achieved a dramatic result when she attempted to rescue two adult eagles that had become entangled in a mid-air fight. (Screenshot via MLive.com)

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A pair of birds that symbolize American freedom got tangled up in Michigan Wednesday – and might have died if hiker Dave Shields hadn’t happened along and looked into a ditch to see what the ruckus was about.

He saw the distressed bald eagles, their large, hooked talons locked, and called wildlife officials.

Sue Stamy, director of the Twin Lake nonprofit group, Braveheart Raptor Rehabilitation Center, told MLive.com the two eagles probably plunged to their unusual predicament after locking talons in a territorial dispute over a nearby nest.

“Sometimes,” said Stamy, who was called to assist Michigan Department of Natural Resources officials in untangling the eagles, “this ends in death.”

She figures the birds were in the watery Laketon Township ditch for a couple of hours before Shields happened along.

“They were stressed; they were shocked,” Stamy said. “I’m sure of that.”

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Stamy, DNR Conservation Officer Greg Patten and Muskegon County Sheriff’s Office Animal Control Officer Tiffany Peterson were in a quandary about what to do to free the birds. Eventually, they decided the best thing was for Stamy to take them back to her rehabilitation center for evaluation.

And then something magical happened when Stamy gently placed a blanket over the birds. The blanket moved with stormy ferocity, then the majestic birds took flight in opposite directions, apparently no worse for their ordeal.

“Beautiful,” Patten told MLive. “I was shocked. I thought this would be harder.”

Stamy has been doing raptor rescue for almost a quarter of a century and has encountered all kinds of circumstances, but never anything like this.

“This is the first time in my 24 years of this work that I’ve had to deal with a territorial dispute,” she told MLive. “I’m glad they don’t have severe injuries that could have affected them down the line.”