Think of a bald eagle and you probably imagine a beautiful raptor, wings spread wide, soaring high above a boreal forest. Perhaps they bring to mind strength, even patriotism. The people of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, don't want to hear it. They consider them nothing but pests.
The 4,700 people of this fishing village way out there in the Aleutian Islands live among 500 or more eagles. The birds swoop onto docked trawlers, pick through trash, and snatch grocery bags from the hands of unsuspecting pedestrians. It's no wonder the locals call them Dutch Harbor pigeons.
“You think of them as these iconic models of what people like to think of America as, but it’s all about perception,” says Corey Arnold, who celebrates the birds and the region in his ongoing series Aleutian Dreams. “Photographing them in these compromising situations, like in garbage cans—it’s ironic.”
Haliaeetus leucocephalus was once quite common, but came perilously close to extinction due to hunting, pesticides, and habitat loss. Aggressive conservation efforts, including protection under the Endangered Species Act, saved them, and today nearly half of the nation's 70,000 or so bald eagles live in Alaska.
The birds especially like Dutch Harbor, which prides itself on catching more fish than any other port town in the country. Fishing boats hauled in 787 million pounds of pollack, cod, halibut, and crab in 2015. As you can imagine, that attracts eagles. Lots of eagles.
"When humans provide some food, they’re subsidized predators," says Falk Huettman, associate professor of wildlife ecology at University of Alaska Fairbanks. "We do it with overfishing, dumps, and farms. Once you have an industry, it gets these concentrations."
Arnold often sees this firsthand. Although he lives in Portland, Oregon, he earns a living doing seasonal work on fishing boats in Alaska. He hauls his gear aboard with him to document life on the sea. He first noticed the eagles 14 years ago during a stint aboard the crab boat Rollo that sails from Dutch Harbor. They descended on the boat whenever the crew tossed leftover bait overboard. "They would fly so close that you could throw a chicken wing up in the air and multiple eagles would dogfight for it in the air, catching the wing with one talon, then battling other eagle thieves to get away," he says.
He's spent the past decade photographing the Aleutians, keeping constant watch for eagles. They aren't dangerous, though they can grow quite large and you don't want to tussle with those razor-sharp talons. (His cat, not nearly so risk-adverse, once tried stalking one of the birds. She escaped unharmed, but spent the rest of her time at sea safely locked up.) Arnold once saw a pair of eagles fight over discarded meat behind a supermarket, and got quite a start when one of the birds ended up in his lap, flapping wildly. That explains why he always wears a hood and hat.
Locals tend to take such things in stride, for there's not much they can do about it---harassing an eagle being a federal crime and all. The best they can do is stay out of the way, and carry glass cleaner to deal with the bombs the birds inevitably drop on their windshields. Just one more reason many locals consider the eagle little more than an overgrown pigeon.
