Where Eagles Dare
Imagine standing on a wooden dock beside a coastal Alaska inlet. Around you are fishing boats tied up their moorings, gently bobbing on the sparkling water. The picturesque craft have just returned to harbor, their bounteous catches transferred from their holds to nearby processing plants and canneries. Salty breezes surround you, you fill your lungs with them, when suddenly, out of nowhere, WHOMP! The impact against your neck and head is like that of a two-by-four or a thick branch. Your legs sag, your vision swims. And then you spot it, a most unlikely nemesis, rising back into the sky from whence it came: a majestic bald eagle, our noble national bird. When three attacks on unsuspecting humans by the avian emblems of our freedom occurred a few weeks ago on Kodiak Island near the harbor at Dog Bay, residents of the area were mystified. In Alaska, assaults by eagles and other raptors are not uncommon (the state is mostly wilderness), but they tend not to occur in settled places, nor …
