Watertown, New York:...

Watertown, New York:


It was eagle-eyed zookeepers who noticed first. The DNA testing only
proved what they already suspected.


The Thompson Park Zoo's American bald eagle breeding program was going
nowhere. Not with two males, anyway.


"We had our suspicions right away. The birds are virtually the identical
size," said Director Glenn D. Dobrogosz, who laughed Tuesday about the
gender mix-up that provided a comical start to the zoo's new eagle
breeding program.


"It happens. Not a lot. But it happens," he said.


The two American bald eagles - supposedly a male and female - arrived at
the zoo last July from the Bird Treatment and Learning Center in
Anchorage, Alaska.


The two males became good buddies but zookeepers quickly realized there
would be no amorous flights for these two, Dobrogosz said.


Because bald eagle males and females share the same coloring
characteristics, it is difficult to determine gender by visual inspection.
However, in most raptor species, the female is slightly larger than the
male, he said.


Based on their size and behavior, the Alaska center mistakenly thought it
had sent a male and a female, Dobrogosz said. It wasn't until the Thompson
Park Zoo took blood samples for DNA testing that it confirmed the birds'
sexes.


"Sure enough, they both were boys," he said.


Now that the confusion has been cleared up, zookeepers are once again
focused on the romancing.


One of the males is being sent to the Clinch Park Zoo in Traverse City,
Mich. Meanwhile, the Watertown zoo already has received a new female from
another raptor rehabilitation center on Sitka Island in Alaska.


"We're positive this time," Dobrogosz said, heading off the inevitable
inquiry about the bird's gender.