Two longtime eagle ambassadors drew a crowd at Hawk Mountain

More than 200 people spent Eagle Day at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary with two eagles that have lived in care since 2001, the Reading Eagle reported on November 7, 2026. Golden eagle Goldie and bald eagle Rennie, both females hatched in 2000, are permanent residents of the Carbon County Environmental Education Center near Jim Thorpe. Injuries that year left each of them unable to survive in the wild. Naturalists Susan Gallagher and Franklin B. Klock II used the hour-long programs to talk about anatomy, migration, and conservation.

Goldie's appearance was her first program in well over a year. She had been recovering from aspergillosis, a respiratory infection. Klock told the audience she was doing great. Gallagher described the bald eagle's return in Pennsylvania, from a handful of nesting pairs in 1988 to more than 300, and said that recovery happened because people protected habitat and cut pesticide exposure. The sanctuary's own migration counts go back to the 1930s. The two birds on the glove will not be released. The nesting number is the wild population, not a count of birds at the event.