A pair of bald eagles in British Columbia have taken the extremely unusual step of adopting a baby red-tailed hawk in their nest, according to Gabriola Wildlife Rescue Society (GROWLS).
The birds are located on Gabriola Island, right next to Vancouver Island, where bald eagles nest their own offspring.
Experts say the baby hawk was brought to the eagle’s nest to be used as food, and that a 24-hour camera set up to monitor the eagles was captured the moment it happened.
However, after the little eagles did not eat the hawk, the parents began to take him under their wing, both metaphorically and literally.
The baby red-tailed hawk is shown live on camera. (Sasse Photos / YouTube)
A similar incident occurred in Sydney, British Columbia, in 2017. This was the first time bald eagles were recorded raising a baby hawk instead of eating it in the countryside.
There was some debate at the time about how this young hawk ended up in an eagle’s nest in Sydney.
The prevailing theory was that the hawk was brought to the nest to be used as prey, which seems to be the case this year.
“This should put an end to all alternative hypotheses about how these young hawks are in eagle nests,” GROWLS said in a statement Friday.
In 2018, the hawk, which was briefly bred by the eagles, left in about three weeks and “disappeared so as not to be seen again,” according to GROWLS.
Experts, including McBeal University’s professor of wildlife biology, expect something similar to happen again. The baby red-tailed hawk is likely to leave the nest on Gabriola Island in the next three weeks.
Locals and GROWLS volunteers have set out to name the baby Malala hawk, which they say means survivor.
GROWLS adds that eagles caring for hawks have been recorded only a few times in North America and mostly in California.
As early as 2017, Bird told CTV News that an adoption like this had been documented only “two or three times, somehow, in the history of science.”
Add Comment