Researcher Rachel Wheat, who started tracking eagles from Haines with satellite technology two years ago, said she’s had a half-dozen close calls with birds flying near her truck along the Haines Highway.

Her first collision came during the Alaska Bald Eagle Festival Nov. 12, when a mature, female eagle was killed after taking off into the bumper of Wheat’s Dodge Dakota.

Wheat said she was heading west near 21 Mile Haines Highway around 3 p.m., driving only about 35 mph because of all the photographers in the area, when the accident occurred. “Even then, I didn’t have enough time to avoid it,” she said.

The eagle had been “right next to the road” in tall grass with its head down eating salmon, which kept her from seeing it until she was only a few feet away, Wheat said. “It was one of those things where there was nothing I could have done. She was a nice-looking bird… It was somewhat ironic, but I feel horrible about it.”

Wheat phoned the American Bald Eagle Foundation, which responds to injured birds, but the eagle died before they arrived.

The bird was sent to the National Eagle Repository, which distributes parts, mostly to Native American groups for ceremonial use.