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Giant Raptor Terrorizes Alaskan Village
An anonymous reader writes "A giant raptor, rumored to have a wingspan of 14 feet, has been spotted by a number of Alaskans in the general vicinity of Manokotak. There is speculation that the beast could be a Steller's sea eagle, but Phil Schempf, of the Fish and Wildlife Service, is dubious: He says that no creature that large has flown in more than 100,000 years. Read about it in this Anchorage Daily News article, which notes that residents have been warned to keep their children indoors."
Diomedea exulans has the largest wingspan, capable
of spending several months aloft hunting the ocean
and never touching land. They don't weigh as much as the Steller's but they are big. But they are
exclusive to the Southern Hemisphere. Maybe one got very lost. Possibly blown off course by a hurricane. Maybe the russians have been busy with genetic experimentation. Or perhaps it's a Chernobyl migrant.
http://tinyurl.com/3t236
...it isn't a live bird at all?
Ok, I'll put on the tinfoil hat and ponder crazy things:
In the past couple years someone made a model pterodactyl that flew. Add a camera and a(nother?) radio and you might have an interesting unmanned spy craft. You'd have to test this someplace before deployment of course... and if it scared people away from it might be better yet. (Though if it was too different/big it could attract attention... but then that is also useful - it can distract from something as well.)
As a resident of the Washington, DC area and someone who wonders if I'll live long enough to make it to my car after leaving work, I can say I needed a story like this.
Part of me is fascinated that there might be a bird out there this large, another part of me is thinking YEAH -- BRING ON GODZILLA!
There was a very large eagle that was native to New Zealand. It used to pray on the large flightless birds. Tended to break their legs and their necks.
When humanity arrived, the bird went extinct. However, it might have been self defense. After all, from a bird's perspective, what's the difference between a large flightless bipedal mammal and a large flightless bipedal bird? Especially when both die when you break their neck?
Just my 2 zorkmids,
Dasunt
You only need to see one 300 pound halibut, 2000 pound moose, pumpkin the size of a truck, cabbage that you could roof your house with, ravens 4 feet tall, 30 pound king crab with 6 foot long legs and ouf course foot long buds to belive a story like this. I lived in Alaska 18 years and I do not doubt this one bit.
Everything is bigger there.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
I don't remember which channel or the name of the program, but awhile back there was a documentary that discussed the Native American legend of the "Thunderbird" that correllated it to reports of a large bird that has supposedly snatched a couple of children in the last few decades.
They theorized that a large bird may have survived extinction, but have extremely few members left alive. The bird was thought to have a wingspan betwen 12 and 20 feet.
Might be the Nessy of the Americas, but it would be interesting to find proof. It sounds to me like these could be the same bird.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.