A male eagle in Valley Park, Missouri, who went viral for trying to incubate a rock, is fulfilling his dream as a dad!
Murphy, a 31-year-old flightless bald eagle at World Bird Sanctuary in Missouri, began exhibiting “strange” behavior last month when staffers noticed the bird forming a nest and sitting on a large rock.
Day after day, the determined bird sat on the rock, which was hospitably strewn with leaves and branches, seemingly waiting for the impossible.
Visitors at the sanctuary could not help but wonder about Murphy, whose lethargic behavior drew so much notice thatthe sanctuary said it hung a signoutside the bird’s enclosure for curious onlookers.
“Is That Eagle Hurt?” the sign read. “If you see an eagle lying down in the back left corner under a perch, that’s Murphy! Murphy is not hurt, sick, or otherwise in distress. He has built a nest on the ground and is very carefully incubating a rock! We wish him the best of luck!”
After a visitor posted the sign on social media, the sanctuary said animal lovers started asking the facility to give Murphy an eaglet of his own.
“It was kind of like, how can we not do this? How can we not give him a chance?” Dawn Griffard, the chief executive of the sanctuary, told theNew York Times.
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The sanctuary said about the bond between the birds, “It’s just too much for the heart to handle.”
“You can definitely see the imprinting happening, which is exactly what we wanted,” Griffard added to theTimes.
However, things hit a snag on Sunday when a tornado touched down close to the sanctuary. Staff checked on Muprhy and his foster chick the next day and found the eaglet “soaking wet, breathing heavily, suffering from hypothermia.” The sanctuary said it took the chick to the hospital to dry it off with microfiber towels and heaters.
“Murphy is just learning how to be a dad, so he isn’t perfect yet. He has lots to learn!“the organization said on Facebook.
“It was kind of scary,” Griffard told theTimesof finding the chick drenched after the storm. But, she added that Murphy was still “doing very well learning how to be a first-time dad.”
source: people.com
