BEHOLD the bald eagle: national animal of the United States, featured on the seal of the president, where it clutches 13 arrows and an olive branch; a bird sacred to many Native American cultures. Here it takes the role of dumpster diver, scavenging rotten meat from an Alaskan supermarket.
Fisher and photographer Corey Arnold took the image in Dutch Harbor, an isolated island town in the Bering Sea. Its population is about 4700 humans, 500 to 800 eagles. Local people call the birds Dutch Harbor pigeons. It鈥檚 quite a comedown for such a magnificent animal.
Advertisement
These predators, with wingspans of up to 2.3 metres, are opportunists. Fish make up by far the largest proportion of their prey, followed by other waterbirds, such as geese. But they also scavenge carrion and, particularly in Alaska, like to frequent garbage dumps.
Arnold, based in Portland, Oregon, began to fish seasonally to earn money as a teenager. A few years later, he started photographing the things he saw at sea. Now he is a professional photographer with his own salmon boat for summer fishing. This image has been nominated for a 2018 World Press Photo award.
Photographer
Corey Arnold,
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淎merican dumpster鈥�
