iStockphoto / slowmotiongli
A man in Lakewood Ranch, Florida just a few miles away from where I’m writing this article is being called a hero for diving into an alligator-infested lake to save a drowning bald eagle. Calling it an ‘alligator-infested lake’ feels redundant like “pizza pie” because just about every lake in this region has at least one alligator in it, especially this time of year during alligator mating season.
The nearly 70-year-old man didn’t hesitate to put his safety on the to save the bald eagle from the lake. Doug Hay told local news “he knows eagles can’t swim” which isn’t true, they are just pretty bad swimmers.
But believing that bald eagles couldn’t swim was enough for him to jump into the lake in Lakewood Ranch, which is actually where I went to high school a thousand years ago, and where I once found an alligator inside of the men’s bathroom during school one day… They’re all over! So he was smart to act fast:
Not for nothing, the wife needs to be commended here for grabbing his phone and filming the bald eagle rescue because he certainly didn’t care about receiving credit for it. But she snapped this video which has warmed the hearts of every American regardless of political affiliation.
According to Hay, there is a 7-foot alligator which lives in this particular lake. So time was of the essence. Alligators are particularly territorial right now as it is alligator mating season around here in Southwest Florida.
Once Hay reached the bald eagle, it jumped onto his forearm and left a few cuts from its talons but stayed here until they made it back to shore. After monitoring the bald eagle for a few hours, he called for help and it was transferred to the Wildlife Center of Southwest Florida in nearby Venice which is about half-an-hour to the south.
For anyone that thinks bald eagles cannot swim, you should know that is not true. I have personally seen a bald eagle swimming across the lake our family’s camp is on in upstate New York and the bald eagle swam a few hundred yards to the shore… But it looked like a complete doofus along the way, similar to this one here.
What I will say is they are particularly vulnerable in the water because they appear to a lot of difficulty taking off once they land in a lake. Their wings/feathers/plumage are particularly susceptible to being waterlogged once they are submerged so they must slowly swim out and are vulnerable to predators below like alligators, sharks, or even northern pike in some instances.
Lakewood Ranch where this incident occurred is one of the fastest-growing communities in the United States. When I was a kid, it didn’t exist. That whole area was nothing more than farms and phosphate mines. But that changed at the turn of the century, around 1998/99 and it has been BOOMING for years. Even still, I constantly see bald eagles circling above or even hunting fish in the lake in my own backyard. This area is teeming with raptors from bald eagles to ospreys to caracaras. It is kind of a birder’s paradise, minus the alligators.
Content shared from brobible.com.