flesh. It may include flesh from an 

 animal that has just ceased to live to 

 that in the linal staf^es of bacterial 

 disintegration. In short, the word 

 has been used largely to distinguisli 

 the dead from the living. If that 

 connotation is applied, the bald 

 eagle may be considered a confirmed 

 carrion feeder, particularly in its 

 feeding on fish washed onto the 

 beach, killed and not entirely eaten 

 by bears on salmon streams, or fish 

 that may have been killed by, and 

 then stolen from, the osprey. 



The carrion eaten by the bald 

 eagle comes from several sources, 

 but fishes and mammals supply the 

 bulk. The uncertainty of determin- 

 ing the nature of flesh eaten by a 

 predator is a perplexing problem to 

 the food analyst. Consequently, the 

 volume and frequency with which 

 carrion appears in any food ap- 

 praisal (table 2) are subject to wide 

 interpretation. Although the ap- 

 pellation of carrion was placed on 

 no less than 60 items in the 435 

 Alaskan eagle stomachs examined, 

 it is apparent that this represents 

 only an uncertain fraction of the 

 total carrion consumed. Among the 

 mammal remains considered to have 

 been carrion when eaten were deer 

 and two common marine mammals, 

 the harbor seal {Phoca) and the 

 northern sea lion {Eumetoinas ju- 

 hata) . Several eagles were shot in 

 the vicinity of carcasses of these 

 mammals that had been washed up 

 on the beach. 



In volume, food classified as car- 

 rion com])rised 12.3 percent of the 

 annual food of the Alaskan eagles 

 (table 2), and, although there was 

 some irrejjularitv in the amount of 



carrion eaten from month to month, 

 the great bulk of it was taken when 

 fish were plentiful, thus indicating 

 the carrion character of much of the 

 fish eaten. 



Fortunately, the senior author 

 participated in the collecting of 

 much of the Alaskan material and 

 was closely associated with the late 

 Hosea R. Sarber, who collected most 

 of the remainder from the south- 

 eastern part of the Territory. Thus, 

 much pertinent information con- 

 cerning the environment and char- 

 acter of the foods taken by the 

 eagles was available to him. It is 

 against such a background that he 

 has drawn his conclusions regard- 

 ing the carrion nature of the food 

 in the stomachs of eagles taken in 

 Alaska. 



Although the bald eagle has often 

 been reported feeding alongside the 

 turkey buzzard, a recognized car- 

 rion eater, as a rule the eagle's car- 

 rion food is not in as advanced a 

 stage of decay. Much of it, espe- 

 cially the fish on the beach and the 

 carcasses on the highway, may be 

 considered essentially fresh meat. 

 Dead flesh, however, requires no ef- 

 fort in ca[)ture and it often may be 

 found in substantial quantity. 

 Consequently, when the bald eagle 

 is feeding on a dead creature it is 

 merely following the natural in- 

 stinct of most predators: to make 

 a living in the easiest way possible. 

 For ihis reason, bald eagles are 

 abundant when salmon have 

 spawned and lived their life span, 

 and when dead or crip])led water- 

 fowl are to be found on areas being 

 hunted. Even along highways the 

 bald eagle is not averse to joining 



42 



