The Disputed Giant Bird - Washington's Sea Eagle
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- čas přidán 20. 04. 2024
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In this video we're looking at Washington's Sea Eagle, the disputed species described by James J. Audubon. Could this species have actually existed? Or was it just an elaborate hoax?
Music:
Beautiful Mystery
Francis Wells
www.epidemicsound.com/track/a...
I live in Henderson County, Ky. I have on 2 occasions seen what i thought was a golden eagle, quite rare for our area, on the ground during deer season. I assumed they were feeding on remains of deer. When they took flight, they were much, mych bigger than i anticipated. They were easily 1.5x the size of bald eagles. I have had a nesting pair of bald eagles on my property for several years and am quite familiar with their size and shape. That was why i assumed them to be golden eagles. If golden eagles are smaller than bald, then i do not know what it is that I saw. It was no vulture species, it was definitely an eagle, but truly huge in scale. I am glad this video happened to pop up on my suggestion list. I believe Audubon was correct.
I used to see Golden Eagles next to Bald Eagles all the time while lake fishing in Idaho. They are huge... much bigger than Bald Eagles.
Not all Bald Eagles are cast from the same mold. Like they say, Northern Bald Eagles are larger than other Bald Eagles. That they like to eat fish is copacetic to my way of thinking, we've seen them above the Channel Islands in SoCal since the 80's & 90's.
As long as it's gonna take, the little cliff dwelling raptor, is a very personal experience.... With that being said, Audience's love the very arcain ...
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Stay safe and Be Blessed with success in your passion and devotion to our Blessed Savior God... Amen 🙏🙌
I'd like to point out that we very nearly lost another large bird of prey - the California Condor - quite recently, so for such a bird to have gone extinct shortly after being discovered is possible.
That being said, it'd be great to get a hand on those "lost" museum specimens.
Not the best comparison, as the condors were well known to people for centuries, even as they declined.
True, and a large factor in the Condor’s near-extinction was the extinction of many giant prey animals in America (many of which were before settlers arrived). If there was a giant eagle that also relied on the larger prey, I wouldn’t doubt that it’d already be declining by the time America was colonized.
When did the Condor become a bird of prey? Wasn't it just basically a big vulture?
@@Ryodraco a better example is the Stellar’s Sea Cow, it only went extinct like 27 years after it was discovered by Europeans
Aren't stellar sea cows extinct never knew they could actually fly 🙃
This case has all typical characteristics of the cryptid-to-known-animal pipeline:
a scientist who spent a LOT of time outdoors, so he saw some animals the museum-dwelling, indoor types couldn´t see, the species was known to the locals and appeared in the folklore (thunderbird) and even checks the box of being held in a ZOO during the time when its existence was denied, like the pygmy hippo or bonobo. The only thing which is missing to finish the pipeline is a stuffed specimen in some museum´s collection.
But if other scientists accused Audabon or whatever is his name spelled of being a liar in multiple cases when he was right, it would not surprise me if some museum-dwelling type scientist threw away the stuffed specimen to "prove" this bird didn´t exist. It would not be the first nor the last case when a scientist sabotaged someone else´s work.
His drawing looks almost exactly like a wedge tailed eagle from Australia. Right color, similar crest above the eye, and the largest verified specimen killed had a wingspan of 9'4"... In a time where shipping was all done by sailboat and nobody would bat an eye if you took a large bird of prey from the nest and raised it as a pet, it stands to reason that there could have been a ship with a captain sailing around with an eagle as a pet. It would explain why the bird was seen by the sea a few times and then never again.
I thought the same. Pity it didn't show it's chest.
Is it normal for MULTIPLE museums to lose specimens of a bird not known to science?
sadly yes thats why we only have one dried head and foot of the dodo today
Museums have warehouses full of collections. The Smithsonian has thousands or more artifacts that haven't even been fully catalogued dating back decades or more.
@@fallows4life with the dodo though, wasn't it because a lot of museums didn't consider them valuable until after they had become extinct? Even then, we do know what happened to that dried head and foot, it was recorded, etc. The bigger a specimen is, the harder it is to understand how it could have just been lost, let alone multiple specimens. An eagle with a ten foot wingspan would be on par with the largest flying birds that exist today, and if it was rare then would be considered very valuable to museums. I suppose it is possible every specimen was lost somehow (fire, decay) and the incidence of loss not recorded, but if so it would be an incredible case of consecutive bad luck.
@@Ryodraco true, the story is hard to believe becouse it isn't very believeble but for a cryptid it's pretty believeble
The all "lost" giant skeletons found all over America in the 18th & 19th centuries.
It's absolutely possible amd probable.
Museums engage in collusion all the time when needed to.
It's quite weird that so many museums had it in collection yet no bird is know to exist today. Like how are you able to lost the biggest eagle of America? That really feels strange to me
those in europe could lose them from war. ww1/www2. and america 1's budget reasons if staff thought it was a gold eagle they might have sold it or trashed it.
To @luky1346
When Sir Flinders Petrie was excavating the tomb of Djer, the third Pharaoh of the First Dynasty of Egypt, he found a forearm with a bracelet on it that had been secreted away by a tomb robber who never returned to claim it. It was the only remains of a Pharaoh that early ever found. He delivered it to the Boulaq Museum, now the Egyptian Museum. The curator there took the bracelet off and discarded the arm in the trash. When Petrie heard about this having happened, he quipped, "A museum can be a very dangerous place."
@@stupidminotaur9735
Just look what happened to Emperor Caligula's pleasure boats.
let's say that the museum collection back then were quite crappy, they didn't had the knowledge or technique we have, most specimens are in bad state of conservation, or were lost (fire, lost in endless collection in storage etc.)
It's like aliens, bigfoot, religion & other fairy tales.
It is remarkable how much research goes into a video like this! I love this channel and its dedication to education.
I have seen dark colored giant eagles on two occasions, and took a photo on one of those occasions. The first sighting was an individual, standing on the ground next to a four wire, barbed wire fence. The fence is around four feet high, and this bird was taller than the fence. The second occasion I saw a pair. I see bald eagles all the time, including juveniles. This pair of giant dark eagles was in a tree a short distance from a red tailed hawk, and an adult bald eagles, perched a few yards away. These birds were roughly three times the height of the hawk and double the height of the bald eagle, which was admittedly a small specimen but still an adult eagle. I was a little afraid to get closer to these birds but I got as close as I could, and after one of the two flew I quickly snapped a blurry photo with my old, early version camera phone. The photo shows a dark bird without feathers on its legs, so it is not a a golden eagle. It has a very thick black beak, and a very thick head. When the birds flew, I would estimate the wingspan to be at least 8 feet. I have seen thousands of sandhill cranes and a few whooping cranes, and the wingspan of these birds was roughly the same as whooping cranes.
Sounds like you are describing Golden Eagles
When I lived in DE in my backyard a mailing pair of GE’s landed in a tree in my backyard, and they are truly a big bird of prey. They seemed to be bigger than Bald Eagles.
But I’m going to label them as GE’s.
@@bri-manhunter2654 No, I know golden eagles as well. Goldens have feathers all the way down their legs. These eagles did not. They were not salt and pepper like a juvenile bald eagle either, they were solid black or very dark brown. And HUGE.
Respectfully u didn’t see a WSE 😂
@@noahshields507 I see. You (respectfully) know this because you were there, standing beside me, when I saw these birds. You snuck up on them, climbed the tree, injected a syringe, and ran a DNA analysis and matched it exactly to either a bald eagle or golden eagle. You took a tape measure and ran it along their backs from top of the head to tail tip and confirmed that they were indeed regular sized eagles and that the adult bald eagle in the adjacent tree was a rare midget bald eagle, and the adjacent red-tailed hawk one more tree over was also a rare midget version of red-tailed hawk. You were there and measured the barbed wire fence that one of these birds was standing next to and verified that the fence was actually not four feet tall and that my tape measure was one of those rare defective tape measures that occasionally show up in hardware stores after having shrunken. You can post your laughing emojis (respectfully, of course) because you have seen the photo I took of one of the birds, and carefully inspected it and verified that it was just a case of mistaken identity, because you are an expert ornithologist, and of course, you were also present by my side when I sighted these birds. I used to be like you , I used to laugh at people who claimed to see mountain lions in my area, until I saw one myself, then another and another and then my neighbor ended up with a series of photos on a trail cam, and then another neighbor shot one so we had a carcass as proof. Yup, I used to be an arrogant jerk as well. Don't fret, its possible that you may grow out of it. Saying all this respectfully of course.
@@user-dq6mq6kz5r You aren't the only one. I have been seeing one large black/brown eagle here in between Chesterville and Mt. Vernon Maine. I first noticed it about the time that people were photographing the lost Stellar Eagle from Russia that had shown up along the Maine coast a couple years back but this thing seems too be all black/brown except the legs which were like a dark grey/dark brown/dark tan color. This bird appears to have an 8ft+ wingspan and seems to hunt over the local sandpits and rivers then flies back toward Mt. Vernon where I know there are rock ledges just off the old Adams Rd. Always seems to come from that direction. I usually see it in spring and fall. Wings are proportionally wider than a Bald Eagle. It seems to circle a little more slowly and in wide overlapping creeping circles. Similar to a bald eagle but slower.
I'd like to know if any native American culture has a name/description of Washington's bird. If it were the largest of all American eagles, the original inhabitants of the land would've known about it.
The thunderbird. I briefly mention it at the end. But to delve into that topic was going to be another 30 minutes of video time.
@@all.about.nature4630it's okay we got time. Would love another 30 minute video
@all.about.nature4630 I know I wouldn't mind a 30 minute video about the Thunderbird.
Yes we have clear descriptions of lots of extirpated species (or extant species that have been extirpated from some regions) but personally, it seems like people really, really, really, don't want to hear about it. I'm a biologist and tribal member and we have, for example, lots of stories (as do all the tribes in the region) about jaguars in the southeast, I'm doing research to document this, but it's hard. We also have stories of an eagle bigger than golden eagle but looked like a gold eagle, amongst tons of other relevant stuff... but i feel like it'll take me 20 years to try to make any scientific headway on any one species.
I thought that jaguars having been present in the southeast was an accepted fact.
I see to recall that their home range once spanned from Southern California, to Florida. (In addition to their current range, of course).
A few years ago, didnt they track and get trail cam footage of jaguars in Arizona and Texas?
I'm from MS. What tribe are you from? I had some Choctaw buddies growing up.
I was this guy for Halloween last year. Nowhere near my best costume, but still cool
Also I personally think the Washington sea eagle was the native Americans inspiration for the thunder bird. If I saw a gigantic eagle it's not to far fetched to think it was some sort of god due to it's size and possible rarity
(If you're wondering how I found out about this bird, I inherited my great aunt (who I never met) bird book and it had some of the other birds he "made up".)
Edit: it being hidden somewhere in a random museum cabinet isn't that farfetch'd actually. In a book I read recently "The last of its kind the search for the great auk and the discovery of extinction" by Gísli Pálsson it mentions that some cabinet labeled owls in a non orthological part of the museum storage had some great auks in it, so anything is possible
Excellent pokemon reference!
It sounds like something on the edge of extinction. If its breeding was easily disrupted and it's size made it a tempting target the animal could have been pushed out inadvertently.
I don't know if I believe the eagle actually existed - the alternative explanations are very plausible to me.
But I've also worked in a museum collection where, when I began, the curator lamented that the collection once contained a few valuable specimens of now-extinct species, which had gone missing at some point. Could I keep an eye open for them?
My task was to enter the collection into a digital database, and I quickly learned what had happened to the missing specimens. A number of the original labels had gone missing or become difficult or impossible to read over time, and at some point in the past few decades, the collection had been re-catalogued by someone who apparently had never met a bird they couldn't mis-identify, and they didn't bother to compare to the original catalog either. I found all of the "missing" specimens. And that was at a pretty small collection and we hadn't suffered any theft or fires or wars or any other disasters over the years.
All of which is to say... I wouldn't be shocked if one of the purported specimens is rediscovered someday.
ah id have thought a number of them to go missing over the fact they were quite valuable(someone steals them) . but yes a number of lost/not known specimens have been found in museums over the years.... including 2/3 lost/unknown relativities of the Dodo,
If you google "largest gecko species" it shows the New Caledonian Giant Gecko _Rhacodactylus Leachianus..._ However, that *_is not_* the largest known gecko species‼️
The largest known gecko species is actually the now extinct _Gigarcanum Delcourti_ (formerly _Hoplodactylus Delcourti)_ 💯
Do you know *HOW* it was discovered⁉️ 🤔
Coincidentaly around the *same time* Washington's Sea Eagle was supposedly discovered; in the early to mid 1800's (unknown exactly but approx. 1830-50) a French biologist collected *a single gecko specimen* which he taxidermied and sent back to a French Natural History Museum... And there it sat _unknown to science_ *for over 100 years* until a museum curator found the specimen collecting dust in the back of storage in 1986! It was an unknown gecko about *twice the size* of the world's _current largest_ gecko! Yet there was no date, genus/species, collection location, or any of the important information with it‼️
It had gone extinct in the 100+ years since that specimen was collected and now *nobody* knew where it was from or what genus it belonged to! DNA was successfully sequenced in 2023 to find out it is related to the Leachianus gecko and from New Caledonia. It was then renamed to Gigarcanum (as it was previously hypothesized to have come from New Zealand)
TL;DR: We had the *worlds largest gecko* sitting *in a museum collection* and *completely unknown to science* for well *over 100 years* until someone randomly discovered it and realized how important it was‼️
Not only that but the species was *already extinct* by the time the only specimen was found.. AKA if that *single* hundred year old taxidermy was _never found..._ then *we would never have known/have proof that it ever existed* 💯👏
No. They didn't mislabel the largest eagle that anyone has ever seen.
@@nunliski he already explained in the video how they could easy do it by saying its a junivile bald eagle or that other eagle........ also when you taxidermy animals and eagles they shrink in size so it might just be mistaken as a smaller bald eagle
Given how compulsive Audubon was at shooting rare birds as trophies, it is no wonder that the rare bird was hunted to extinction by other trophy hunters.
I've heard this a lot and it amazes me that any museum has big rooms of specimens that apparently no one wants to spend the time cataloguing.
I think it’s often that there isn’t the time/money to catalogue unfortunately
extremely common
Look up delcourt's giant gecko for a fun time
To @YetiUprising
Spending monies on museums, art and culture is not always the highest priority for many governments.
Money needed to pay people to do so and the sheer amount of specimens needed for it could be factors.
But what's suspect here is that if this was really a giant eagle, bigger than other native eagles, it's not a specimen museums would just toss out. It would also be very visible among the collection of other bird specimens. So either the specimens deteriorated and were not replaced (likely due to a lack of other available specimens), they were sold, or they were verified as fakes. It was also pretty common at the time to preserve notable specimens in dramatic poses for display, so being displayed could've caused the specimen to become moth-eaten or otherwise severely damaged.
Alternatively, perhaps the specimens didn't exist, or existed but belonged to other, misidentified, species--some of which may have been non-native and kept in order to claim the museum owned a rare native specimen.
Not just saying it but this is one of if not the best nature channels. Love it!
That's very kind of you. Thanks!
Ahh, Washington's Sea Eagle. Haven't thought about that bird in years. Very interesting if it is/was a real bird.
Nit-picky note, the Golden Eagle you show at 11:27 looks like a darker intermediate morph Red-tailed Hawk. The parts that stuck out to me are the streaking pattern on the chest, facial coloring pattern where the dark is restricted to the malar, and a hint of rufous at the tail. Also the bird looks substantially smaller than the Bald Eagle, when the Golden Eagle should be roughly the same size.
That aside, was very interesting to learn something new about the early days of birding in the colonial era. Was told in a very fluid manner and kept me interested the entire time, keep up the awesome work!
Golden Eagle is typically larger than most Bald Eagles
Yup that's a hawk. I was just going to type that! :D Tiny pointy hooked beak, white feathers in front of the eye. That's not an eagle.
Adult golden eagles in Scotland look just like Audubon's painting. I once encountered an immature golden eagle (with a white tail) in a forest in Scotland, when I was walking along a fire break. It was about to eat a dead rabbit, but I disturbed it and it flew off, low over my head. It probably had a wingspan of about 7 feet but in the moment seemed absolutely massive (like the 10 feet of Audubon's eagle). I've seen them two other times in the Scottish Highlands, both times while on my own walking quietly along a remote road wearing drab clothing. They glided silently overhead scanning the ground for prey (very much like Audubon's first encounter). They make their nests on cliffs (called eyries), exactly like Audubon and his colleagues saw. They are elusive and rarely seen in Scotland, by the locals or the hordes of tourists. Golden eagles do eat fish. Occam's Razor can be summarized as "the simplest explanation is usually the best one", in this case that Audubon and company saw something like a golden eagle.
I totally expected a video about the eagles of Washington state
About 20 years ago my wife my grandson and myself were fishing the crooked Creek not too far from soldotna Alaska we were listening to a talk show on the radio at camp the guest was warden from the fish and game and they had a contest what is the largest wingspan, people called in with their guesses for over 10 minutes, nobody guessed right the game warden said they found a stellar Sea eagle on Kodiak Island wingspan over 15 ft
Stellar video, I was happy to hear/see thunderbird mentioned! On the final scene before the patron list there is a typo. "What are you thoughts" is present, when you intended your.
Again, great video.
I also hoped for thunderbird 😄
I'm not too that part yet but I think the Washingtons eagle is the thunder bird so I can't wait!
The video was of a big vulture.
@@Fishfanplayz no because there were huge vultures thousands of years till the European people came that lived which were called thunderbird.
Maybe it lived primarily off of salmon. This was going extinct when he found the last few. Salmon aren't exactly jumping out of the water in the East
Important note. There was a study where they put up kites that were shaped like eagles. The kites had different wing spans and were put up at different heights and distances. Random people were asked to give an estimate of how big the kites were. The results proved that any size estimate from any distance is completely unreliable. 10ft was called 20ft and 25ft was called 10ft. Remember that fact when you hear all the stories about someone seeing a huge bird. Experts are biased and only giving you the size based on known facts about well studied birds.
Perhaps some recent and historical thunderbird sightings could be this bird.
A Golden eagle was on the road I was travelling on in the tanker rig one spring ,there was trees on either side so it had to fly ahead of the truck to gain altitude to fly away. I got a real good look as I pulled up behind it as it watched me over its shoulder while gaining height. It only lasted a few seconds and he was up and gone but I swear his wingspan was as wide as the truck if not more…huge. Eastern slopes of the Rockies in northern Alberta
As usual with your videos, great work! I love how relaxing and informative your presentation is, and how fair you are to all parties involved.
@all.about.nature4630
Hi. Love your work. Biologist here. The bird pictured as the golden eagle is not a golden eagle. Golden have feathers down to their feet. I discussed with a falconer and it looks to be a red tailed hawk
Thank you
Thanks. I actually thought it was a red tailed hawk, but sometimes the best I can do is trust that the way a video is labeled in the stock videos I use is accurate. And it was labeled as a golden eagle.
Should have trusted my gut.
@@all.about.nature4630
No worries
To be fair I primarily keep exotics and breed rare reptiles and arthropods . So even I struggle with bird ID
Plus half North American raptors are “brown birb with yellow feet’s”
My name is Art Vandelay. I'm a marine biologist. I once rescued a whale from suffocating by removing a golf ball out of its blowhole.
Were the seas angry that day, my friend?
@@brianwebber6996_ROADHUNTER yes. Like an old man returning soup in a deli
Fascinating! I'd never heard of this until now. Meticulously researched and presented - thank you! My feeling is that this bird did not exist but there is always that shred of doubt. Giant eagles have existed - the extinct Haast Eagle of New Zealand is the most iconic example - but even if this bird had already been extremely rare by Audobon's time the colossal lack of evidence from elsewhere does seem to suggest the bird was a product of Audobon's ego and not one of evolution.
I think I agree with you, Peter. Thanks for the comment!
A typical case of revisionist history out of a personal contempt for Audubon.
Thankfully history is cataloged by people who don't allow their personal beliefs, opinions and bias come in between them and the history being recorded.
I think it's a pretty clear case of misidentification. It was most likely a juvenile Stellar's Sea Cow.
You mean Stellar’s sea eagle? They are the largest living eagle who live on the northeast Asian pacific coast, but sometimes vagrants make their way into North America, there was one that crossed over back in 2020 and since then has flown all over the continent from Alaska down to Texas and then up to Newfoundland. However despite their huge size they don’t come close to having 10ft wing spans, they typically are 7ft but larger females can get up to 8ft, and claims of 9ft have been made, but never 10ft and certainly a male could never reach that size.
@@greasher926 nah he was right. Sea cow in the sky
@@greasher926 No, you know what's funny, I was making a joke and wasn't even aware there was a bird called Stellar's Sea Eagle! That's hilarious!
With so many different folks having had this bird in their collections as well as Audubon having shot one, SOMEBODY would have surely photographed it as proof. It's way too bizarre that every single specimen was never photographed OR preserved. There is no way a professional like Audubon misidentified anything, so the only answer is it was all made up.
I remember old people talking about having seen birds Eagles of this size here in WV. They claimed the wingspan was around ten feet. they would put up the smaller animals and keep the children inside if one was seen. And if they could they shoot them. I always thought they may have been seeing a golden Eagle. Now I'm not so sure.
A guy recently went on Joe Rogan show and showed off a unknown blue feather from a large bird (12 inches) 10k years old from a dig site in North America. so large somewhat rare bird wouldnt be that hard to believe. Recently they just discovered a mini terror bird that lived till 5k years ago in argentai that stood 3.3feet. Haart's eagle the last pair shot were in the 1800's. And theres reports of Moa surviving also till the 1880's.
1. moa theres reports of Natives hunting them in 1770's, then theres a british officer who reported seeing them in 1801 With 2 others and a women reported seeing them in 1880's. in a very remote southren flords pretty much a separate island connected to the south island thats to cold for the normal hunting tech of using bush fire. also new radiotion techiges showed that mountain moa survived for an extra 100 years later than og thought till 1500-1600
2. harrts eagle a hunter who wasnt boasting reported he got attacked by a pair of large eagle in a remote/hidden valley by a pair in 1860s? he just put it in his journal no fame no fortunes.
3. terror birds lived both in SA & NA.
Haart's Eagle? Argentai? Go to school
@@thehoundofthegamingvilles2012There is a better way to teach people if you know they are wrong. Explain the error without being an azz.
@@chesterfieldthe3rd929 ok fine chesferdieldfherrd920
@@chesterfieldthe3rd929 and who said the Haast Eagle was shot in 1800s? And what reports of Moas surviving the 1860s?
@@thehoundofthegamingvilles2012 ok
Forgive me if I missed something, but one thing sticks out to me about this case and that's in regards to what had happened to the specimen
Audubon shot and showed to his friend? Why would he have needed to purchase one from the museum if he already had one? I feel like this is a glaring hole in his story. I just can't believe he'd discard of the carcass.
"The only way to properly observe the birds is to come back...AND SHOOT THEM ALL" jfc that escalated, thankfully those birds moved
This is what cops say when staking out a drug house 😂
When i was 12 years old, 18 years ago, i was down by a small creek in issaquah Washington. I sat down on the shore to eat chips before heading back. All of a sudden there was this giant what I thought was a bald eagle that's wings were completely outstretched soaring completely silent all I could hear the made me turn my head to even see it it was so fast was the flicker flicker of the sounds of his feathers touching the occasional leaf on the trees that made me turn my head to look. It was the biggest thing I've ever seen with its wings outstretched both tips of the Wings barely could clear the tree line on both sides of the Greek which was easily 10/11 ft I guess it was about that big if you know Issaquah Washington you can probably vouch for there's a lot of creeks and streams that are that size and it was so quick and it was so silent that I was completely in shock seeing it is it was going really fast and it was just soaring between these trees just like it was going somewhere like it had intention he had a purpose and it was on a mission. This is the first that I've actually ever seen any information or heard anybody say anything about anything like that and I seen the state Washington on here and I'm quite intrigued by this correlation. To put it into perspective its wings outstretched we're like the nose to tail end of a horse. And I use that as a relevant comparison because I used to train horses and that's something for me to visually refer to
Amazing video. Honestly on this case I tend to believe the species once existed but it is now exinct. It would be amazing if they manage to find one of those museum specimens sooner or later.
I'm in the camp of Most Likely Existed but human error also exists. Some of the sightings, like the sightings of pairs flying, could've been misidentified. And also it's incredibly easy for museums to lose specimens and documents; paper and ink age, natural and human disasters happen, things get mismatched in moving, etc. The Cairo museum even "lost" part of Tutankhamun's treasure because it was in a mislabeled box.
The woodward's eagle found in the La Brea tar pits fits the description of the Washington eagle, atleast in size. So I think the animal surviving to the 1800s is plausible, especially as it was found alongside bald eagles and golden eagles.
It should be noted that woodward's eagle was first discovered in 1911.
Amazing. Absolutely amazing kob on this video. Idk how you do it. But you have an amazing talent for researching topics.
You're extremely kind! Thanks!
So this guy, who relied on notoriety and exciting the public's imagination to get funding for his work, just so happened to find the biggest, rarest version of the most famous type of bird, that nobody else can confirm having seen before or since? Yeah, not buying it. I'd say the most generous interpretation is that he knowingly manufactured a discovery to generate money so he could do the actual truthful but not exciting field science.
The historical Forrest Galante
@@kokotomenance344 forrest galant doesnt get criticised like at all for the shit he is doing
I used to think this was one of the more plausible cryptids before I found out he was known to hoax stuff
did you not watch the video?
@@stupidminotaur9735
'Tis obvious that he didn't.
Great video. Thanks for all your hard work. Very informative.
I had never heard of this bird till now. Interesting video
There is a eagle species called the Steller's Sea Eagle which actually exist and does occur in the Pacific Northwest Coast United States, though rare does occur.
True.
@@GAVACHO5150 • Don't think the Steller's sea eagle is the largest eagle, if anything is the Philippine eagle: which is the rarest eagle, or the harpy eagle.
@@franktank4360 I guess it depends on the person. I go by weight. Stellers wingspan is at least ½ a foot longer also. Largest beaks too. Even with no frame of reference they just look massive. Harpy/Philipene are barely taller. Regardless, Golden Eagles are the most aggressive, formidable, & confident raptors in the world. Imo they are the baddest flying birds alive. Just my opinion of course.
I recall there were several different species of eagle found in the La Brea tar pit deposits; maybe one of them was this guy?
Woodward's eagle might fit. I don't know official estimates for wingspan, but it was 43.4 inches long, ie 3 feet 7 inches, the same size as reported by Audubon for the Washington eagle.
As much as I doubt that Washington's Eagle existed in the first place, part of me hopes it did, and one of these days some intern is going to stumble on the taxidermied 4-5 foot wing/remains in a dusty, mothballed box and blow this wide open.
He probably saw a Steller's Sea eagle. They occasionally go to places outside of their normal range, and are often seen, usually alone in the US and Canada, even as far away as New England, or Texas. Also, the white-tailed sea eagle is occasionally seen in the US and its wingspan rivals that of the Steller's Sea eagle. The Steller's is arguably the largest eagle, if you take into account the average of all of the traits often used to judge size, such as height, weight, wingspan, etc. While they are number one only in weight, they are arguably top 3 in every category and get little fanfare as fish eaters, and a small population. Every ranking list you look at will have some variety as to the order for their ranking. Frankly, I would love to see these birds start living all of the US and Canadian country sides, where the land and water can support them. During the months that the lakes of Canda are unthawed, they would have ample food. However, similarly to the bald eagle, they would have to migrate to a warmer climate or the sea, to find food.
Great video AAN!
I have been seeing an unusual gigantic eagle around the Chesterville Maine area, sometimes flying over the hill toward Mt. Vernon. We have bald eagles, hawks, falcons, ravens & turkey vultures. This is not any of those things. It flies similar to bald eagles but in slower overlapping circles. It seems to like hunting over the local sandpits. The wings are wider compared to a bald eagle and the body seems to be more wings and less head and tail by comparison. I would guess the wingspan to be 8 or 9 feet. I had figured it was a golden eagle passing through as it was dark brown with no white or mottling. I usually see it in spring and fall just before or just after the snow arrives or just before it disappears. I have tried to video tape it as it was only about 75ft above us but the camera on my Galaxy S7 wasn't good enough.
This was definitely a rollercoaster for the mind. I started out simply not believing it, but the carefully constructed story drew me in.
It seemed credible almost. Bigger things flew in history and that's a fact. The accusations and the subsequent debunking of most accusations were also nicely done, taking us further on that rollercoaster ride of belief/disbelief.
There is still one theory untouched and that is that it was a case of island gigantism. "Well, where's the island?" Being chained to specific breeding grounds represents an island.
I saw Massive Eagle of some kind here in Washington I believe was a Stellers Sea eagle .This beast was massive As Bald eagle was harassing it in a tree .When you see Crow harassing a Bald eagle .Now place Bald in with Crow and Massive Stellar in place of Bald .what stood out form Massive bird was it thick Massive beak thick and wide .
Gotdaum i love these type of video. Lore vedios are awsome
Thanks for a very interesting video. Regards, John. (UK).
They still exist, deep in the forests of ft Knox Kentucky. We joked for two days about the birds being able to carry off unsuspecting privates. I was infantry so I didn’t do basic or AIT there, I was there for the first half of pre mobilization training for a deployment. They flew over an M203 range deep in the woods.
There are so many animals that we've lost over the years that it's hard to say if it's real or not. You would think if it was a lie that one of the people involved would of said something to someone admitting it's a hoax.
I wrote this 1/2 way through. You mention it towards the end:
It's size brings to mind the native's legends of the Thunder Bird. I wonder if that was his inspiration?
Could you make another similar vídeo But on ANOTHER animal?: this time about the chilihueque? And the feugian dog?
Great video!
If the bird Audubon had seen was an immature bald eagle, and it was so large, it would have been truly enormous when fully grown! Adults of that species would certainly have been known.
I believe if it is true and not a hoax that it could be a Teratornis. Teratornitid birds are though now to be predatory instead of the old way to portrait it in the past making them like giant vultures. It is the only 3+ meters wingspan predatory bird known from North America in the recent times, it could also be behind the thunder bird legend.
Except what Audobon saw were described as fish hunters, genuine fish eagles, etc. While he saw them as a distinct species, they were still recognizably fish eagles rather than the very distinct group that were the teratorns (which were not even in the same family as fish eagles).
So Audubon‘s secret for his precise paintings was that he first shot them.
The biggest mystery about this whole controversy is the alleged missing museum specimens. One disappearing is believable, museum items becoming lost or misplaced has occurred many times around the world. There's nothing unusual about that, but, several specimens of the same _very_ rare species? I don't think so. The odds weigh heavily against it.
Seems like we saw the death of a species occur
Yes and they still exist today. Biggest Sea Eagle is native to East Asia and one can easily stray from their native habitat and possibly circumnavigate the whole globe.
Wow what a great video. I learned so much. The Nation Aviary in Pittsburgh is at the end of my street - i love going there even though im not a true bird nerd 🤓 Again, great video. Definitely subscribing and catching up on some back episodes tonight.
Definitely entertaining and informative.
In his book, A New Voyage to Carolina. John Lawson described three Different Eagles, Bald Eagle, Golden Eagle and a Grey Eagle. I wondered what the Grey Eagle was?
Might explain thunder bird sightings
In 1970, several people saw the gigantic bird "soaring toward Jersey Shore [Pennsylvania]. It was dark colored, and its wingspread was almost like [that of] airplane." It looked at me as a mouse in the grass of my forested backyard... as I felt. It was black and wings moved slow and effortless. Thunderbird: Great Lakes🐁
John James Audubon what an amazing artist no matter what his critics may say and you did put forth a good argument in his defense
I saw an eagle once . It had at least 14 foot wing span. It was in the Smoky mountain range.
Is that nest still there on that rocky ledge? Has any one checked for egg shell remains?
Right? The guy was so interested and these birds were so skittish they ran away after seeing ONE group of humans like 100 feet away? These birds must be constantly moving their nest every other day if the spot one POTENTIAL predator barely in eyesight of the nest...
Then the guy is so interested in it he just dosnt investigate further at the jest site because he dosnt see them 3 days later??
I question old timey researchers that they don't follow through on discoveries and also with first inclination of seeing one is "Imma gonna shoot it" and then showing it to only ONE person... just seems like stupid practices.
@@Dan55888 Rock climbers must come across old nests on ledges, all the time, and never pay any attention to the egg shells in them.
By this point, well over 100 years later, it would be long gone.
Think of it this way: how many eggshells from other birds do you see still lying around after spring is over? How about after summer? After that autumn? Even if you might see, one lying on the ground all summer, eventually it will decay or something will eat the shell.
Any eggs or shells that are preserved over long periods of time are sheltered in some way from the elements or are deliberately preserved by museums etc. Eggs have been found preserved in caves, peat bogs, and midden heaps. Not only do eggshells in open nests have no shelter, but they also tend to fall out of the nest where they are more easily weathered and accessed by other creatures. And we're talking about, ostensibly, a nest that's unsheltered aside from parent birds, on top of a cliff.
@@brassbucklesthere can still be trace environmental dna. If someone is able to find that specific ledge, it’s possible trace amounts of DNA can still exist?
based on the region my hunch tells me that the Washington's Sea Eagle might just be a hybrid of a Golden Eagle and a Bald Eagle and thy mysterious disappearance of these birds in collections is that they were simply re-cataloged as either a Bald or Golden eagle
i wonder why, despite many museums, zoos and private collectors had it in collection, this bird didn't cause public/media sensation considering its unusual size
The parent eagles moved their chicks to another location because they knew men were coming to kill them? Uh huh. What a load of crap.💩
Yeah, it's highly unlikely they moved to avoid humans. If they moved, it's because either the chicks fledged and started properly flying in that short of a time, or something happened to the chicks and the parents moved on to do other eagle stuff.
Or, you know... they just didn't exist in the first place.
Yea how tf would they even do that?😂 I’ve never heard of any eagle doing anything like that
Super video.
wandering albatross had competition
it could have be a immature steller's sea eagle. they have been know to venture into eastern north america
Yes, but a male with 10ft wingspan doesn’t fit the description, even females don’t get that large, usually topping out around 8ft. But still I think it could be a possibility, especially since there are dark brown variants.
@@greasher926 yea but he could just be exaggerating the size, there’s no reason to just take that at face value
I like to think it was a flock of Pteranodons.
I saw a gigantic dark eagle on a fence post by the road in the Alvord Desert of Oregon. We stopped to look and the dust caught up to us and made the bird fly away. The wingspan was wider than the pickup almost the length of the truck. And it was black or brown or dark grey all over, beak and claws included. And it was definitely like an eagle, not a condor or vulture, except the beak seemed thicker, more like a parrot, except still hooked like an eagle. I have always thought about it in terms of the Thunderbird legend, but this video makes me wonder differently. Maybe the Washington's Eagle and the Thunderbird legend are connected?
I have seen similar bird here in Washington State in treat massive Eagle ,with thick beak ,for Size it was massive as Bald Eagle was harassed it out tree it was resting in .Now if seen Crows harass a fully grown bald eagle .Replace the Bald eagle with Crow and Bald eagle with Massive Unknown eagle in spot of bald .
I saw one in 1995 in Spokane flying over the 5 mile mesa. I was at Salk middle school playing baseball and the game stopped and we all stared at the small plane sized eagle circling over us.
@@GarathWolfe @vadenk4433 Except for my friends that I was in the truck with, I've never met anyone else who has seen one. Thanks for commenting, that's really cool. A wingspan like that, they could probably range a long, long way. If they fish, like Audubon said, you would expect they could span the World. But I'm betting they don't like the cold, otherwise you'd hear reports from Europe, for sure. Or maybe the wingspan is for gliding not endurance. Or maybe for altitude and climbing, too. Idk. Always have wondered. This is a new angle I didn't know about.
The bird may or may not exist, but saying the drawing was plagerized is ridiculous. They are both pictures of eagles, there's only so many ways to pose an eagle and the pose isnt even identical
There are many ways to pose an eagle. It could have been in flight, it could have been presented hunting or eating prey, landing, etc. It's unimaginative to say otherwise. If Audubon indeed shot at least one eagle, then he had a specimen to work from, but this particular artwork doesn't look as realistic or natural as his usual style. Compare his other birds of prey to photos of the animal and, while they're not perfect representations, they look more realistic. Not only that, but his art of most birds is far more dynamic. Using that particular pose is odd for Audubon's art style and an odd choice overall.
That being said, while he pretty clearly did copy the pose, and while I'm unconvinced the bird is real because I'm familiar enough with birds of prey to know it doesn't look as realistic as his other portrayed birds, a copied pose alone doesn't equate plagiarism. The overall structure of Audubon's bird is different enough that it's distinct.
Audubon painted a King Vulture purportedly from Florida. There is a great painting of a magpie-jay, which are not known from he US. There are reasons his contemporaries were dubious of some of his paintings.
Fascinating story presented with intelligence
im yet to find a better channel on this platform!
I have seen the Brown Eagle. It was 1997 at the border of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. At first we thought it was a California Condor and watched it fly over us at only 60 feet. Massive Eagle with at least a ten foot wingspan.
I have to be honest here, I don't think the bird ever existed. I'm open to being proven wrong, because it'd be super cool if North America had an eagle that big in recent history (especially if it might still exist somewhere, though given the size and habitat, this seems highly unlikely).
If it did exist, the possibilities are, in my opinion, the following:
1) It was a subspecies or close relative of Steller's sea eagle that lived inland and especially around the Great Lakes and did not have white markings typical of other sea eagles. Why it was only claimed to exist east of the Mississippi, I don't know; it seems like the Grand Canyon prior to the damming of the Colorado River would have been a prime habitat for a bird that nests on cliffs and relies heavily on fish for prey.
2) It was a larger subspecies of the bald eagle, or very closely related species. In this case it may not have reached the size claimed by Audubon, but could have had distinct coloration and been noticeably larger. Some subspecies have been mistaken for separate species, and some separate species have also been mistaken as being subspecies.
3) It wasn't a sea eagle at all. In Audubon's time, genetic testing didn't exist, so taxonomy was based on how closely related animals and plants were presumed to be based on factors like plumage, coloration, and skeletal structure. But sometimes, animals including birds can have very similar skeletal structure, coloration, and behavior while being only distantly related. This bird could have been a true eagle or some other classification of bird of prey, which had adapted over time to feed on fish. This wouldn't be unheard of. What might make this theory a little more believable is the fact that the majority of living sea eagle species have some kind of white or nearly-white markings in their adult plumage, and it's likely that if this bird were a sea eagle, it would be a close relative of the bald eagle--making white markings in the mature birds more likely. So, the absence thereof might indicate different ancestry from sea eagles, such as true eagles or certain hawk species.
Fascinating video.
Haast's Eagle was mythical until fossils discovered.
The 'plagiarized painting' thing seems like the weakest bit of 'evidence' to me - he'd seen this animal only briefly and the only one he got a close look at was dead. He didn't know enough about it to do a fancy painting, so he just did 'standard dramatic eagle pose'.
Audubon does sound like a fool. These eagles seem ridiculously skittish. One of his first instints was to shoot it, then appearently he DID shoot one and then showed only ONE person before taking no more proof, no pictures, no taxidermied body, nothing but stories.
No photos in 1820!
@@DrivermanO Cameras have been around since 1815 the earliest surviving photograph is actually from 1826.
@@LawfullSpook Yea but silver plate cameras of the period were not transportable at all. Not to mention how it was still a new thing and how expensive, time consuming, etc it would be. Photography was a totally different ball game in the early 19th century.
1. shooting is/was the primary way to collection spemiases till atleast the 1960's. 2. it sounded like his friend was in the backwoods did/couldnt get it taxidemied... 3. and later it sounds llike at least 8 were.
@@LawfullSpook look at a photo from 1826, think again.
Also the eagle has hilarious eyebrows in the drawing
Audubon's history with that eagle made me remind of Charles Muntz, from Pixar's UP. Both cases carry a lot of similarities, with both Audubon and Muntz being two very known scientists of their time (yes, besides being a explorer, Muntz was a scientist). Both claimed to discover large species of rare birds and were laughted out and labbed as frauds by the scientific community.
Both Audubon and Muntz killed one individual of their respectives bird species, but even so science didn't took them seriously.
Audubon, like Muntz, was a scientist/explorer that spent most of the time in the nature, discovering new species.
The only significant difference between the two is that Audubon didn't loose his mind over the years and didn't became a serial killer.
You missed an argument on the plagiarism issue. The body posture and view angle of both the Rees and the Audubon picture simply look absolutely generic. I'm sure you could find a dozen piictures of eagles both european and american older than Rees that look very much the same. I see no reason to charge Audubon with copying Rees. Following a generic tradition is not plagiarism, and you gave a good argument why Audubon would have gone with a generic view in this case. Also, I support the comments that museums can always be expected to lose specimens or simply forget that they have them. I worked in one, and when you barely have the staff to change broken light bulbs, then misplaced and uncatalogued stuff piles up. Which then can easily get lost. I vote for the animal being real.
The generic poses of the depicted birds are also done for a purpose: to compare the species with other, similar species and see the differences easier.
Yeah completely true
8:36 Audubon, a bird expert, claiming that the eagles had moved the chicks seems suspicious to me. Perhaps he was loathe to admit that they must have abandoned the nest. Perhaps he made the whole thing up!
Doubt this man at your own peril. He said it, I believe it. He described and painted 2500 plus bird species and we assume he faked this one? Not likely.
You should do a video on Steller’s Sea Ape
Yk if you consider this bird to be a stellar sea eagle it would make sense why nobody ever found the specimen. Because it’s already been labeled as something else we know about
Wow this was interesting. Thanks !!! 🙋♂
11:30 - That's a Red-Tailed hawk on the right, but, good documentary anyway. I love how you don't rush the story. It's a bourbon glass-swishing, over-a-fine-cigar kinda story. (Banks the fire before resuming.)
13:20 - Ah yes, the slave owner admired George Washington as a "hero of freedom." Of course.
Fascinating!
I've seen a Golden Eagle with a ten foot wing span, he was eyeing up my Corgi.