Burrowing cats

[helen99]

As you may have heard, the bald eagle at the Washinton DC national zoo died on the 4th of July. The death is currently under investigation.

The following articles attribute the death to Burrowing Cats. I did a search on Google to see if I could find any instances of Burrowing Cats (besides these articles), and you know what? I couldn't find any! This does not mean they don't exist (mine certainly burrow under the covers), but still...

This is about the 10th death at the National zoo. As a conspiracy theorist, I am forced to suspect there's more to this than meets the eye. Like maybe a disgruntled employee wanted someone's job, didn't get it, and is trying to make someone look bad by killing the animals. Or maybe there is a psycho on staff. Or maybe they're being poisoned with Spider Milk. Or something. But I don't think it's Burrowing Cats. No, no I don't.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13678-2003Jul5.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23447-2003Jul7.html

Comments

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

*nods* Aye... breaking it's neck would have been an excellent way for either a human killer or even a predatory animal to immobilize the bird quickly. I'm also noting that there seem to be conflicting reports in different news articles about whether or not the eagle was capable of flight. Also, their suggestion that the bird was killed by an animal attracted to the fish that were being fed to it seems preposterous... any animal attracted by the fish would have EATEN the fish, and not bothered with the eagle unless the eagle tried to defend it's fish. Which it probably would not have tried to do against a superior predator, particularly since it was used to food being delivered to it regularly. So I agree, probably a human and not any sort of cat.

Sadly, though, I get the feeling that if the bird was murdered by a human it's neck was not broken... for a human to leave behind a corpse that could be described as "savaged" implies a large amount of cruelty and even some sort of rage behind their actions, IMO, and I would think that such a person would be more likely to leave the bird alive during the act. I think it would be more... satisfying... for a person with that sort of motivation. Then again, I may simply have watched too many crime shows involving profiling of murderers. *chuckles*

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Just to be totally weird and abandon the mundane theories for a moment....

... anyone consider a were-bobcat zoo employee or former employee? ;-)

[stormcat.livejournal.com]

*giggle* Yes, actually.

Re:

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

*grins* Glad to hear I'm not the only person who thinks of weird stuff like that. :)

[stormcat.livejournal.com]

If the neck was not broken and the damage was not inflicted postmortem... then there were at least two people involved, one to hold the neck and claws of a terrified eagle and the other to inflict the damage.

Hm. The poor bird was alive, you're right; it was found badly injured and died about ten the next morning, not found dead.

The eagle wasn't capable of flight, incidentally, not as wild eagles are. I saw it when I went to the zoo on a date once. It'd had a broken wing. It could flutter around and sort of do extended gliding hops, but the wing was... badly injured. That may have even been the eagle with the amputated wing, I can't remember if that was the Baltimore or DC zoo.

Re:

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

I notice that at least one article which went into detail about the birds injuries said that they were multiple puncture wounds and lacerations to the bird's abdomen. It sounds to me like someone went at it with a knife. And they wouldn't necessarily have needed two people... one guy with a heavy leather glove suitable for handling raptors could have held it by the legs while stabbing it with the knife in his other hand. It would have struggled a lot, but a few good stabs and it probably wouldn't have had a ton of fight left in it. At which point the killer probably would have dropped it and left. I would surmise that any bite wounds from a feral cat may have come afterwards, while the bird was already lying on the ground and dying.

If the bird was a permanent cripple with a broken wing, then it being caught on the ground by a predator is even more suspicious in my opinion... usually raptors with broken wings like that are kept in pens where they have ramps and platforms they can walk up to hop up into a branch or constructed perch of some sort. Their talons are not really built for extended time walking on the ground, so without such a setup it could have developed problems with the pads of its feet. That's avoided by giving it access to a branch-like object it can wrap its talons around and perch on.