“When we approached the blind or departed from it, the female attacked dozens of times,” he reported.
During a 2010 nest-camera placement in Venezuela, for example, veteran documentary climber James Aldred - in full riot gear, helmet, and flak jacket - was pummeled in the kidneys, head, and neck and was left dazed and bleeding.Īward-winning cinematographer Neil Rettig made the first pioneering films of a Harpy’s nesting tree in Guyana in the 1970s.
Although Harpies don’t prey on people, they don’t hesitate to unleash their fury on those who approach a nest. So, humans with rifles pose as much of a menace as those with chainsaws. Harpy pairs are slow to reproduce, raising a single chick every two to three years. Betraying the traditional non-emotion of academia, Alvarez’s rage practically jumps off the page: “I could not think of any valid scientific reason for a biologist to be collecting Harpy Eagles in the 1980s,” he wrote. Two Caracas museums hired to do environmental studies for a bauxite mine also shot and killed “specimens” in that era. Eduardo Alvarez, who monitored the species over six years for his 1996 doctoral thesis at the University of Florida before founding the Harpy protection group Earth Matters, reported at least seven shootings during his study in eastern Venezuela, including one bird presented to him by a farmer who kept the “trophy” in a refrigerator for 10 years, hopeful of its value. Noted ornithologist Helmut Sick wrote in Birds in Brazil, that the Harpy had long been a “prized trophy” for Indigenous people and colonizers.
The Colombian Air Force features the bird as its symbol, and there’s a “Harpie” series in the wildly popular Yu-Gi-Oh! manga-inspired card game.ĭespite human admiration for the eagle, the bird has regularly been shot with rifles, even by scientists.
Named for a myth, the bird has, in turn, inspired popular culture, including the immortal Fawkes the phoenix in Harry Potter and a 1971 TV film, Harpy. How much did America’s longest-running nature program owe to the Harpy Eagle? (A falconer, Fowler studied the Harpy in Guyana and brought three back, which he had trained.) Those eagles starred in the pilot for Wild Kingdom, which had a successful three-decade run. It’s a cipher one researcher who has studied the bird for three decades said, “It’s very difficult to observe Harpies, let alone find their nests.” In fact, one bird, tracked to a specific tree in Belize by its radio collar, still eluded a team of researchers.Īmerican TV viewers were likely shocked by the pair of Harpies that Jim Fowler, later to star on the popular Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, brought onto the New York set of Dave Garroway’s Today show in 1961. The bird is a silent apex predator that glides through the canopy like a stealth drone and swiftly dispatches lingering monkeys and sloths (among 40 other species) with talons as long and lethal as a grizzly bear’s. The largest raptor in the Americas and one of the world’s largest eagle species, it can measure as long as 3.5 feet and weigh up to 20 pounds. The Ya¸nomamö and Pemón of Venezuela simply called it Wajari: goddess of the wind. The Huaorani of Ecuador’s Amazon consider themselves descendants of the jaguar and Harpy. Across the Americas, the Harpy has been venerated as a god by Mexico’s Olmec people and the Chavín of Peru.
The Harpy Eagle - named for the half-human, half-bird wind spirits of Greek mythology who bore evil-doers to just punishment - is a massive and awe-inspiring bird that has fascinated humans since long before European arrival. Symphony no.2 for Organ and Orchestra Mvt.Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Print this Article Share to Email Put on a Happy Face, from Bye, Bye, Birdieġ5. The concert, held on Friday and Saturday, July 14 and 15 in the Conference Center, was conducted by Mack Wilberg, music director of the Choir and Ryan Murphy, associate music director. Special guest artist Alex Boyé, along with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square present “Music for a Summer Evening,” their annual concert held in conjunction with community-wide Pioneer Day celebrations. Alex Boyé, with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, performs the Disney song "Circle of Life," from "The Lion King," by Elton John and arranged by Michael Davis.