Amelia the falcon doesn't survive in the wild

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=1636&u_sid=2260810&u_rnd=1380573

Published Saturday
October 14, 2006

Amelia the falcon doesn't survive in the wild

BY KEVIN COLE


WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

A female peregrine falcon that formerly lived atop the Woodmen Tower in downtown Omaha died of starvation Thursday, one week after being released into the wild.


Amelia the peregrine falcon on a Woodmen Tower ledge.

Julia B. Ponder, interim associate director of the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota, reported Amelia's death Friday in a letter to the Woodmen falcon program.

Amelia had been taken to the raptor center in December 2005 after being found in downtown Omaha with a broken wing. The falcon was released at Minnesota's Afton State Park just southeast of the Twin Cities along the St. Croix River.

Ponder wrote that the raptor center's rehabilitation staff had every expectation that Amelia was strong enough "to either migrate south or head for Nebraska" after a short stay in the park.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen, Ponder said. "Amelia never left the area in which she was released. One week after she was released, she was readmitted to our clinic in a condition of starvation," Ponder said. "Despite our intensive efforts at treatment, she died overnight."

Had Amelia returned to Omaha, she would have found that the male falcon, Zeus, had taken up with another female named Hera. If both females had stayed in the area, they would have battled for territory.

Hera is an unbanded falcon that is assumed to have grown up in the wild. Hera and Zeus hatched five falcon chicks this past spring, four of which survived.

Amelia, hatched in 1999 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, successfully brooded seven chicks.

"We will probably never know what happened during that week Amelia was back in the wild, but we do know that she will be missed by her friends in Nebraska," Ponder said. "We did our very best; unfortunately, our best is not always enough."

[Branjor]

1. How sad....

RIP Amelia.

[peacebuzzard]

2. Yes. sad.

May her final flight be with peace.