The bald eagle who had been marveled at and enjoyed by thousands of people over the past quarter century, acting as one of New Hampshire Audubon’s most popular ambassadors at the Concord facility and in school trips, has died. He was 36.

The eagle, which came to the Concord facility in 1999 missing half of one wing, was found dead in his enclosure Sunday morning.  Under standard Audubon practice he was not given a human name. 

“Our ambassador birds, the ones the public can see and interact with, we don’t name them. Primarily because we’re trying to avoid giving the impression that they’re pets,” said Christian Martin, senior biologist at New Hampshire Audubon. “They’re not pets, they’re still wild animals.”

The bald eagle came to New Hampshire Audubon from the Adirondack Park Agency in 1999, with a metal band on his left leg that identified him as a nestling from Ontario, Canada in 1988. 

The eagle had been found with an injured left wing in upstate New York and half of the wing eventually had to be amputated, meaning he could not be released into the wild. New Hampshire Audubon kept him in an enclosure partly open to the sky so he could interact on occasion with other birds.

It also faced the door as people entered the Muse, the portion of the facility where raptors were kept.

“The eagle would vocalize, it would call at you when you walked in the door. I’m not sure if it was saying, ‘You’re on my turf,’ or ‘You’re a human, am I going to get food from you?’ or what,” said Martin. 

This act showed people that the bald eagle’s cry they hear in movies doesn’t actually come from a bald eagle, which has a relatively weak cry. The call is actually from a red-tailed hawk, a common raptor in New Hampshire and elsewhere.

The eagle weighed about 10 pounds and had a 6-foot wingspan, Martin said. Male bald eagles are much smaller than female eagles. He was fed fish as often as possible, since that’s a major component of the wild diet, and also small mammals. 

Birds of prey often live longer in captivity than in the wild, where they are exposed to many perils and it’s not unusual for them to live three decades or more. The national Audubon Society says it knows of one bald eagle which lived to be 50.

“Having him here gave people a close-up look at a bird that Fish & Game and Audubon and other wildlife agencies had been working so hard to restore,” Martin said. He pointed out that when the eagle came to Concord there were just seven documented territorial pairs of eagles in the wild in New Hampshire. This year the number has risen to around 115 pairs.

“A lot of people were exposed to this bird as one of their first good, close wildlife experiences. So many school kids came to see it ..,. and there was a time when it traveled and we took it to schools,” he said. 

The eagle’s enclosure will be cleaned and refurbished. It’s not clear whether New Hampshire Audubon will try to get another bald eagle, Martin said. “That’s a big commitment.”