Jean Keene

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Jean Keene
Jean Keene (birthname Jean Marie Hodgdon)
Born	October 20, 1923[1] Aitkin County, Minnesota[1]
Children	Lonnie Keene

Jean Keene (born October 20, 1923 as Jean Marie Hodgdon),^[1] also known as the "Eagle Lady", is most famous for feeding hundreds of bald eagles daily during the winter and early spring on the Homer Spit in Homer, Alaska. Born in Minnesota, Keene was a trick rider in a traveling rodeo in the 1950s, until a riding accident cut short her rodeo career. She moved to Alaska in 1977 and began by feeding a few returning eagles on scraps from the seafood plant where she worked. She currently gets food trucked in by donors, and feeds hundreds of eagles up to 500 pounds of fish a day. Her activities have been widely publicized in national media in the United States, and she is the subject of a biography by Alaska author Cary Anderson.

Keene has been criticized by environmentalists for drawing large populations of eagles to Homer, with potential effects on their own health and safety as well as populations of other birds. An ordinance passed by the Homer City Council in 2006 prohibits the feeding of eagles within the city limits; however, the city council granted Keene an exemption, giving her special permission to continue feeding bald eagles within city limits until April 2010, at which time Keene will be 86.

Contents 1 Life 2 Feeding the eagles 3 Public attention 4 Criticism 5 References 6 Further reading

[edit] Life

Jean Hodgdon was born on October 20, 1923 in Aitkin County, Minnesota.^[1] The oldest of three sisters and one brother, she grew up on a dairy farm in Aitkin, where she helped with farm chores including herding, feeding, and milking cows. She learned to ride horses and became a talented horse breaker and trainer.^[2]

In 1952, she was recruited by the traveling rodeo outfit Red River Rodeo as a trick rider, and by the mid-1950s was anticipating an upcoming appearance at with Red River at Madison Square Garden. However, her rodeo career was abruptly cut short in a riding accident during a performance at Olympia Arena in Detroit, Michigan. While performing a trick called the "death drag", she missed a handhold after leaning back too far in her saddle. She fell from her horse and was knocked unconscious when her head hit the arena wall. Her foot was still caught in the stirrup, and she was dragged around the arena, tangled in the horse's legs, until other rodeo personnel were able to stop the horse. She suffered 15 fractures in her left knee. After surgery to repair her knee, she spent several months in recovery encased from the waist down in a plaster cast. After the cast was removed, she was still able to walk and ride, but not with the facility necessary to perform in the rodeo.^[2]

For a time she worked as a professional truck driver hauling cattle. In the late 1950s she married, and gave birth to a son, Lonnie, before divorcing. By the early 1960s she was a single mother. She opened up a dog and cat grooming business and also raised and bred cocker spaniels. She later became the owner and operator of Jolly Chef Truck Stop in Minneapolis, Minnesota.^[2]

Keene came to Alaska for the first time in the early 1970s to attend a cousin's wedding. Attracted by the state's beauty, she returned for several visits before making the decision in 1977 to move there — alone. Her son Lonnie, now 17, was deemed old enough to make his own decisions, and he chose to remain in Minnesota. Keene took a week to drive from Minnesota to Alaska in a secondhand motorhome, ending in Homer, where she parked the motorhome at the end of Homer Spit in the Homer Spit Campground, where it has been ever since. She took a job at a fish processing facility on the Spit, the Icicle Seafoods subsidiary Seward Fisheries, in the spring of 1977,^[2] where she later became a foreman.^[3]

[edit] Feeding the eagles

Keene's career as the "Eagle Lady" began shortly after her arrival in Homer, when one morning she noticed two bald eagles on the beach near her motorhome. Keene saw offering food to the eagles as a natural extension of her practice of keeping bird feeders filled with sunflower seeds for wild songbirds. She began to bring home surplus fish from her job in a bucket, and each morning would throw some fish to the eagles over the short driftwood fence she had made around her motorhome. By the end of that spring, a half-dozen eagles were showing up for breakfast. The eagles departed with the arrival of summer, when the Spit became more active with human visitors, but they returned in the winter when tourist season had ended, and Keene resumed the daily feeding.^[2]

Within ten years, over 200 bald eagles were visiting during winter and early spring each day, and the job of feeding them became more involved. To have enough fish to last through the winter, she would begin in August to stockpile fish scraps and freezer burned fish donated by her employer and by other local companies. The fish was sometimes supplemented by moose meat that Keene salvaged when she heard of a road-killed moose on the highway. She began feeding the eagles at about December 1 of each year, a job that took up to three hours' work each morning.^[3] Keene obtained permission from her employer to use a company forklift to move the large containers of stockpiled fish scraps and freezer-burned salmon, halibut, rockfish, cod, and herring out of the company's large freezers. She then transferred the fish by hand into barrels or garbage cans, which she loaded up in her Ford pickup.

Then she would drive the load to her motorhome, about 100 yards from the Seward Fisheries plant,^[3] and cut the fish into fist-sized pieces to be thrown out to the eagles.^[2] If the fish was fully frozen, she would use an axe, chainsaw, or blowtorch to break the fish down into smaller chunks, or might even have to lug the 30-gallon garbage cans into her motorhome to thaw. "I don't know if anyone else would do this," she told a reporter in 1986. "My motorhome smells like fish. My yard is fish. My truck is fish. I am fish. It gets kind of gross sometimes, especially when you're handling a lot of slimy carcasses."^[3]

Keene had been persistent in her efforts. In 1985 she broke her leg, but managed to keep to the feeding schedule even on crutches.^[3] In the winter of 1994 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and on her doctor's advice underwent a mastectomy. She hired a friend to conduct feeding operations in her absence, but was back to do it herself three days after surgery.^[2]

On July 1, 1998, an ammonia leak and explosion at the Seward Fisheries plant caused a fire that led to the evacuation of Homer Spit and the ultimate destruction of the facility,^[4] which until then had been the major supplier of fish remains for Keene's feeding operation. But Keene was able to report when winter came that she had found other sources and was ready for the eagles when they returned.^[5]

Although the number of visiting eagles fluctuates, currently about 200 to 300 eagles show up each day during the months of winter and early spring. Ravens, crows, and gulls are also attracted to the area. Keene feeds them an estimated 500 pounds of fish per day, about 50,000 pounds per year.^[2] Her fish supply includes surplus and freezer-burned fish from fish processing facilities still on the Spit, her own purchases using her limited funds from Social Security or retirement benefits, or from fish contributed by her supporters.^[6]

People can come and watch the eagles Keene feeds on the Spit at no cost, but are asked to stay in their cars for their own safety and for the safety of the eagles.^[7]

[edit] Public attention

Keene's work has been publicized in Reader's Digest, National Geographic, The Washington Post, People, Life, "Ripley's Believe It or Not!", and on The Rush Limbaugh Show. A 2004 book, The Eagle Lady by Alaska author and photographer Cary Anderson, documents Keene's life and her relationship with the eagles.^[8] Keene received the 2004 Lifetime Meritorious Service Award from the Bald Eagle Foundation.^[9] The news satire program The Daily Show reported on its April 17, 2006 edition that Homer had been overpopulated by bald eagles due in large part to Keene's activities.^[10] A crew from the show spent two days in March 2006 shooting footage for the show, including a feeding session and interview with Keene and interviews with other Homer residents about Keene and the controversy then in progress about feeding eagles.^[11]

[edit] Criticism

Some environmentalists are concerned with the large population of eagles drawn to Homer by Keene. They believe some eagles have been harmed due to their familiarity with people.^[12] Others are worried about the spread of disease or the change in the birds' natural migrations. Also, some other bird populations in the area, such as cranes, loons, and kittiwakes, have been driven out by their competition.^[13] According to an ABC News broadcast, many Homer residents now consider the birds a "menace", as they have been know to cause car accidents and steal pets. In a few cases, the birds have been shot at.^[14] An ordinance passed by the Homer City Council in 2006 prohibits the feeding of eagles within the city limits; however, the city council granted Keene an exemption, giving her special permission to continue feeding bald eagles within city limits until April 2010,^[6][15] at which time Keene will be 86.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Anderson, Cary. (2005). The Eagle Lady: Jean Keene. Anchorage, AK: Eagle Eye Pictures. ISBN 0-974-35250-0.
• Mackey, Maureen. (2005-10-25). "The Eagle Lady: Each winter, for 26 years, Alaska's Jean Keene has been keeping these great birds alive." rd.com (website of Reader's Digest. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.
• Eliot, John L. (2002). "Bald eagles come back from the brink." nationalgeographic.com (website of National Geographic. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.

Persondata
NAME	Keene, Jean Marie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Hodgdon, Jean Marie
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Known as the "Eagle Lady" of Homer, Alaska
DATE OF BIRTH	October 20, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH	Aitkin County, Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH