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Bald Eagle Takes Amtrak
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The eagle has landed--on an Amtrak train <br />(The following article by George Whitehurst was posted on the Free Lance Star website on November 25.) <br /> <br />FREDERICKSBURG, Va. -- It started out as a standard day at the Fredericksburg Police Department, with reports of various criminal activity, both large and small. <br /> <br />But about 4:30 p.m., the department received a call about a fowl incident. <br /> <br />A northbound Amtrak train had struck a bald eagle, and though the bird apparently had survived, it remained pinned to the front of the locomotive. <br /> <br />And so a group of officers headed down to the depot to meet the train and try to figure out if they could save the eagle, according to Fredericksburg police spokesman Jim Shelhorse. <br /> <br />"They actually were able to take the eagle off the train and transport it to headquarters," he said yesterday. <br /> <br />Officers then contacted the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to figure out what to do with this new charge. <br /> <br />Although bald eagles no longer are on the Endangered Species List, they remain under federal protection. <br /> <br />Game and Inland Fisheries officials told Fredericksburg police they should turn the bird over to a federally approved eagle rehabilitation specialist. <br /> <br />And so Valerie Ackerman soon got a call about the injured bird. <br /> <br />As she headed to Fredericksburg, she issued a stream of instructions to the attending officers. <br /> <br />"She was in constant contact with them, offering advice and talking them through it," Shelhorse said. <br /> <br />Ackerman arrived and, once the bird was stabilized, took it home to care for it. <br />She was unavailable for comment yesterday. <br /> <br />But police department officials had contacted her. <br /> <br />"When they talked with her this morning, she said it was doing very well, and really thought it was going to be fine," Shelhorse said on Thanksgiving Day. <br /> <br />Shelhorse marks this close encounter with our national bird as one of the odder calls the department has received. <br /> <br />"They, of course, get unusual animal calls all the time, but I don't know that they've ever gotten one involving a bald eagle and a train," he said with a laugh <br /> <br />From BLET site <br />
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