Because eagles have such incredible eyesight and very fast reflexes, training them can be a challenge sometimes they see things that we don’t know exist! But we spend a lot of time working with each bird, getting to know their personality, what they like (or dislike), and what their body language looks like when they are calm, comfortable, nervous or excited. The more familiar they are with the location and the general expected distractions (such as cheering, strange outfits, cameras, running children) the more resilient they are when new and unexpected situations arise. The Philadelphia Eagles organization also allows us to visit Lincoln Financial Field outside of game day to make sure our birds get as much exposure to the plaza and field as possible. One way we do this is practice! Both birds routinely come out on zoo grounds to meet with visitors and make sure they are used to hearing and seeing the different aspects of large groups of people. While we cannot predict everything, we do our very best to make sure Noah and Reggie are comfortable in this highly variable, high stakes environment. As a mascot, these birds encounter much more intense situations than our average ambassador animal they are often surrounded by thousands of fans, with lots of distractions and noise.
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