"This sounds like the Bigfoot of the bird world."

My wife said that when I told her of this report.

Denny Granstrand
Yakima, WA


At 06:13 PM 10/16/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>I find it difficult to believe that nobody has yet commented here on today's
>Seattle Post Intelligencer's front page story of the giant bird reportedly
>seen recently in Alaska. Here it is:
>
>SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
>
>http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/91426_largebird16ww.shtml
>
>Southwest Alaskans say bird is the size of a small plane
>
>Wednesday, October 16, 2002
>
>THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
>
>ANCHORAGE -- Reports of a giant winged creature seen in Southwest Alaska in
>recent weeks have biolgists and residents puzzled.
>
>Villagers in Togiak and Manokotak say the huge bird has a wingspan of about
>14-feet -- the size of a small plane -- and is much bigger than anything
>they have seen before.
>
>Scientists aren't sure what to make of the reports. No one doubts that
>people in the region west of Dillingham have seen a very large raptorlike
>bird. But biologists and other people familiar with big Alaska birds say
>they're skeptical it's that big.
>
>A recent sighting of the mystery bird occurred last Thursday morning when
>Moses Coupchiak, a 43-year-old heavy equipment operator from Togiak, 40
>miles west of Manokotak, saw the bird flying toward him from about two miles
>away as he worked his tractor.
>
>"At first I thought it was one of those old-time Otter planes," Coupchiak
>said. "Instead of continuing toward me, it banked to the left, and that's
>when I noticed it wasn't a plane."
>
>The bird was "something huge," he said. "The wing looks a little wider than
>the Otter's, maybe as long as the Otter plane."
>
>The bird flew behind a hill and disappeared. Coupchiak got on the radio and
>warned people in Togiak to tell their children to stay away.
>
>Pilot John Bouker said he was highly skeptical of reports of "this great big
>eagle" that is two or three times the size of a bald eagle. "I didn't put
>any thought into it."
>
>But early this week while flying into Manokotak, Bouker, owner of Bristol
>Bay Air Service, looked out his left window and 1,000 feet away, saw a very
>big bird.
>
>"The people in the plane all saw him," Bouker said. "He's huge, he's huge,
>he's really, really big. You wouldn't want to have your children out,"
>Bouker said.
>
>Raptor specialist Phil Schemf in Juneau is skeptical of the size.
>
>"I'm certainly not aware of anything with a 14-foot wingspan that's been
>alive for the last 100,000 years," Schemf said.
>
>Schemf, other biologists, a village police officer and teachers at the
>Manokotak School said the sightings could be of a Steller's sea eagle, a
>species native to northeast Asia and one of the world's largest eagles. It's
>about 50 percent bigger than a bald eagle.
>
>The Steller's eagle has occasionally shown up in the Pribilof Islands, on
>the Aleutian chain and on Kodiak.
>
>A bird known to be a Steller's sea eagle has been spotted three times since
>May and in August of last year, 40 miles up the Nushagak River from
>Dillingham, according to Rob MacDonald of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
>Service.
>
>Another Steller's eagle took up residence on the Taku River south of Juneau
>for 10 summers starting in the late 1980s, Schemf said.
>
>The fish-eating Steller's sea eagle can weigh 20 pounds and have a wingspan
>of up to 8 feet. It has a distinctive and impressive appearance, Schemf
>said, with a pronounced yellow beak, a black or dark brown body and large
>white shoulder patches.
>
* * * * * * * * * * *
* Denny Granstrand *
* Yakima, WA *
* osprey at nwinfo.net *
* * * * * * * * * * *