The Eagle Lady Memorial

I wanted to take this opportunity, a few days before the anniversary of Jean Keene's birthday on October 20th to let everyone know the status of Jean's Memorial. You may remember at the time of her passing last January that Jean's son, Lonnie, and all of us who loved Jean were trying to raise funds for a memorial to honor Jean. I just checked with Lonnie on the status and he said the likely location for the memorial is the flower garden at the Lands End Resort. Since Jean loved both flowers and the Lands End (if you ever visited Jean's home in the summer you would have seen her little spot on Homer Spit transformed into a beautiful flower garden) this is really an appropriate spot for her memorial. Some good-hearted folks have already donated $7,646.00 to the memorial fund, which is over half the goal of $15,000 recommended by the Homer Arts Council. A little side note--some of this money came from many of Jean's local friends who live on small SS pensions, a lot of 10 & 20 dollar donations were made locally. The space for the memorial was donated by the owners of the Lands End Resort. We are halfway to the goal in getting a beautiful memorial for our friend Jean. It's not fair to have Jean's son Lonnie do all the fund raising, so I am asking all of you who know Jean to join in helping Lonnie keep the memorial fund moving forward. All of us who photographed at Jean's little home on the Homer Spit should take a moment and remember her friendship and the great opportunity she provided us plus the fun we had photographing in Homer. This, the anniversary of Jean's Birthday (she would have been 86), is a good time to remember our humble and spirited friend and finish the job of getting her a nice memorial. So, let’s all look into our hearts and pledge whatever amount we can and hopefully together we can raise enough to get her memorial built. Please send your check /donation to:

Homer Council of the Arts
355 W. Pioneer Avenue
Homer AK 99603
State the donation is for the “Jean Keene Memorial Fund”

* Please forward this note to anyone you know who may be interested in helping with the memorial.

Special thanks in advance for your help and we promise to keep you apprised of our progress in getting the memorial completed.

Jack Mills

Thanks for the info. I met Jean two years ago when I drove to Homer to catch a floatplane over to McNeil River. She had a special gift and an open heart for wildlife and obviously eagles. She will be missed. It is also sad that the town fathers have chosen to discontinue feeding the eagles in the winter. It would have been a fitting tribute to her memory if they had continued this practice.

I am mailing my check today.

Don Gorczynski

Her last name (and the memorial fund) is spelled "Keene." I'll make a modest contribution in memory of a charming, feisty woman, and because Homer Spit could use a flower garden.

But while her feeding of Bald Eagles was a spectacle and she created wonderful photo opportunities, overall it was probably bad for the species, especially in the later years, and was indisputably bad for any ducks and cranes in the area. The stories of pets being carried off by eagles are anecdotal, so I'll leave them out of the discussion. Raptor feeding is banned in Homer for perfectly valid reasons.

By the way, there are plenty of entirely natural congregations of Bald Eagles, although in somewhat lower densities. The Chilkat Valley outside of Haines, Alaska; the Skagit Valley in Washington; even some of the roadside creeks on Kodiak Island. Nature photographers have lots of options, all of them healthier for the species.

I can't understand why so many folks, specially nature photographers, consider this kind of feeding of wild birds (eagles) to be a good thing. This is exactly the opposite of what I would expect from someone that really cared about the species. I do not know the whole story behind Jean's motivation, so I was wondering if somene here could kindly shed more light on this.

Thanks.

As you can probably tell from my earlier post, I'm not a neutral source on this issue. But I think Jean initially liked the birds and had ready access to the fish scraps (she was a shift foreman at a fish packing plant). And then when there were lots of birds, she liked the attention. She got a lot of encouragement because all of those nature tours and photographers came at a slow economic time for Homer. Later, as she struggled with illness, it really became the focus of her life and gave her a reason to go on. There's a biography of Keene; I think the link is eaglelady.com.

Hey Jim,

I'm unsure how this situation was 'bad for the species'? And when you say bad for ducks and cranes in the area, are you referring to those with their wings illegally clipped? The feeding was Nov-April, pretty much every year - what all ducks and cranes winter in the area?

Thanks.

Cheers

Carl

Jean fed the birds October 15-April 15 (she used to feed them to April 30, but they made her stop because of the impact on shorebirds).

There used to be big rafts of ducks in Kachemak Bay: wintering scoters, long-taileds, harlequins, eiders. Not at the levels around the south side of Kodiak Island, but still decent numbers. They all vanished in the early 1990s. The cranes were in the spring. There's no solid proof the Bald Eagle concentrations drove the ducks away, but as the Eagle count went up, the ducks went down.

The CBC data is on-line; you can confirm it with a little effort...

As for "bad for the species," that 1.5-2.0 tons of fish (and moose, some years) turned into 1.5--2.0 tons of Eagle feces. That many birds in that concentration of waste is an invitation for disease.

All this was thoroughly hashed out in extended series of Homer City Council meetings when they adopted the ban. Jean would have lost feeding privileges in March 2010 anyway. I'd just as soon not re-visit it here...

Hey Jim,

Just curious - I've never read anything that indicated any real ecological harm (harm, not impact) was done, other than to Ed Bailey's crane and duck farm outside Homer.

I can't imagine the concentration of eagles was too harmful to the eagles, given the scope of their gatherings elsewhere. In all the debates that raged over the feeding, I never saw anything that supported this argument.

Jean Keene did, IMO, what she did always with the best of intentions. In my experience and dealing with her, she never fed the birds 'for the attention', as a post above seems to indicate. She had a heart of gold, was more than polite, generous and hard-working, and her passing is a loss to the world.

Cheers

Carl

Carl -

We're pretty far away from photography as a topic, so I'll just close this thread by saying I mean and meant no offense to Jean, who I knew. We won't know if there was harm in the long term until we find out of the rafts of ducks and shorebirds come back or not. I agree she will be missed.

Jim

"Jean Keene did, IMO, what she did always with the best of intentions. In my experience and dealing with her, she never fed the birds 'for the attention', as a post above seems to indicate. She had a heart of gold, was more than polite, generous and hard-working, and her passing is a loss to the world."

Carl,

I couldn't agree more. If anything, Jean seemed too shy to want attention. Help feeding the eagles--that she appreciated. I don't know the exact time-line, but I believe she was feeding for a long, long time before she got any publicity or a photo tour showed up. My check goes out today.

Great News, The Eagle lady Memorial is now funded! There is now enough money (15K) to start the design and complete the memorial. It will be located at Lands End Resort in the Flower Garden. I would like to thank all of you who supported the memorial and the entire effort to honor our Friend Jean keen. The recent contributions from this forum helped put it close to the top with a final contribution being donated by a group of Businessmen from Fairbanks Alaska to cap of amount needed. As soon as a design is completed and selected, I will check with Jean’s son Lonnie Keene and let you know what the final memorial is to look like. Hopefully we can get an artist rendition to post here. The homer Arts council is still accepting donations and the size of the memorial will be determined by the final amount donated. So, if you still want to be a part of the tribute and haven’t sent in your donation it’s not too late. Again, thanks to everyone for making Jean’s birthday a really special one by making the memorial finally happen.
Best to all and Cheers to the Eagle lady
Jack