Adventures at Wilder Farm

Written by Dave.
Back in the 1960s and 70s Lita’s grandmother, Fran Hamerstrom, led a long term project on the captive breeding of golden eagles. The work produced the birth of Ithaca, the world’s first living eagle resulting from artificial insemination. Sadly, we just heard that Ithaca died several days ago at the age of 37. Here are a few pictures and a note from Jim Grier, the biologist who successfully hatched and raised Ithaca. Ithaca’s parents were Fran’s eagles, Chrys and Grendel.

Fran holding Ithaca, Jim Grier holding Ithaca’s parents — Chrys is on his right hand, Grendel is on the left hand (photo from Jim Grier).

Jim Grier flying Ithaca (photo from Jim Grier).

Fran with Chrys. The chick here is a surrogate redtail hawk (Hamerstrom photo).

Fran feeding a Golden Eagle (Hamerstrom photo).

ITHACA the Golden Eagle (1972-2009) (by Jim Grier)

Ithaca was hatched 13 May 1972 at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. He was named after the town of Ithaca, a Greek name which, according to a local librarian who I consulted at the time,  means “a rugged place suitable only for pasturing goats.” He had to be euthanized 29 September 2009 because of complications resulting from West Nile Virus.

It is sad that he encountered and suffered from the virus, that we lost him, and that he died so young (only 37 years old — he otherwise probably would have lived many more years and I expected that he would outlive me). As a biologist, however, I’m familiar with life (and death) and understand that it’s all in the nature of biology.

Ithaca resulted from an extracurricular project I conducted on captive breeding of eagles. (My primary, dissertation research at Cornell was on avian thermal regulation and physiology.) He was the second of three chicks that hatched in the project. The other two died prematurely. Ithaca [also almost died at the same time], but I discovered the problem in time while he was still alive and managed to rehabilitate him as a young chick. Cornell University produced a news release (click here) and the story was widely reported in the news at the time. National Wildlife magazine published an article on the work in the 1972 Oct-Nov issue, pages 44-45. The story was included in the latest editions of a book by Fran Hamerstrom, “An Eagle to the Sky” (Iowa State Univ Press, out of print). (Fran owned the two adult golden eagles that were Ithaca’s parents, see photo.)

Here is part of Lita’s reply to Jim: “It feels a little strange, kind of like losing a relative you haven’t seen for a long time, but who at one time was a big presence of your life. Ithaca was born not long after me, and growing up, I knew his birth was far more important to my grandmother than her first grandchild was — something I always accepted since Fran and you had worked so hard. I really appreciate you letting me know.”

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