Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Alaskan eagles rip it up (audio postcard)

The tiny town of Haines, Alaska, sits at the end of North America?s longest and deepest fjord. It also hosts America?s largest gathering of bald eagles. Each year, Haines hosts the Alaska Bald Eagle Festival to celebrate the return of thousands of eagles to the banks of the Chilkat (chill-cat) River. John Ryan of station KTOO in Juneau perched on the river bank, along with a few thousand eagles and a few hundred humans, and sent in this audio postcard.

13EAGLECARD 2:59

Eagles congregate north of Haines each autumn for a late run of chum salmon. Listen carefully, and you?ll hear one of those eagles ripping the flesh and crunching the bones of a spawned-out salmon.
[CRUNCHES]
[EAGLE CALLS]
[SHUTTERS]

A pair of trumpeter swans with their long white necks fly up the river, and a flock of nature photographers with unbelievably long telephoto lenses go wild.
[SWANS, GULLS, SHUTTERS]

My name is Ray bulson I?m a freelance photog from Eagle River, Alaska. I?ve never seen such a high concentration of eagles in 1 place. I?ve seen prob about 100 photographers at this event, all kinds from pro?s to serious amateurs to people w/pt and shoots, surprisingly everyone gets along pretty well, not too many prima donnas out there.

[EAGLE CALLS]

We?re Carol and Ken Fowler and we?re from Walnut Creek CA. It?s fantastic, it?s not just seeing so many, it?s the sound, they?re just more melodic than I might have thought.

[AUCTION CALLER]
Elaine Morris of North Fork, California won the festival?s auction to get to hold a rehabilitated eagle and release it into the wild. It?s a prize that auctioneer Kerry Siefert of the Bird Treatment and Learning Center in Anchorage says is ?not without risk.? Before getting the young eagle out of its crate, he shows Elaine how they?re going to hold and let go of a big bird of prey without losing a pound of flesh.

When I let go of that beak?. [MORE INSTRUCTIONS ? EAGLE HANDLING?
WINGS FLAP? APPLAUSE ]

Awesome! Excellent! ?
On the Chilkat River, I?m John Ryan.