A wildlife shelter built to seasonally house Juneau’s most famous raptor Lady Baltimore, a rescued non-releasable American bald eagle, now sits empty 1,800 feet at the top of Mount Roberts and its future remains in limbo.
The approximately $170,000 enclosure was built in the spring of 2019 and is owned by the Juneau Raptor Center, which this fall announced it would be suspending its operations due to a lack of volunteers and board members among other factors.
The project received $120,000 of support from Goldbelt Mount Roberts Tramway, whose upper terminal is located just a few feet away from the enclosure atop the mountain.
According to Juneau Raptor Center President Dale Cotton and Vice President Janet Capito, the board is still trying to figure out what to do with it now that Lady Baltimore is with the Alaska Raptor Center in Sitka.
“The way it stands right now, the Raptor Center is not officially dissolved until the end of 2023, so we still have the enclosure but we don’t have any birds anymore,” Cotton said.
Jennifer Cross, executive director for the Alaska Raptor Center, declined to comment on if the center is interested in purchasing the enclosure to potentially house Lady Baltimore or another raptor. Cross also declined to share an update on the status of the Juneau raptors relocated to the Sikta facility.
According to Cotton, the birds are “doing good.”
• Contact reporter Clarise Larson at clarise.larson@juneauempire.com or (651)-528-1807.
