> Quoting "Johnson, Tracy" <[log in to unmask]>:
> 
> > A retired Chief told me the former Naval Facility in Adak, Alaska 
> > had(s) lots of Bald Eagles.  They used to hang around the 
> dumpsters.  
> > Personnel couldn't do anything about them either.
> >
> > Perhaps major segments of the Bald Eagle population moved South 
> > because major military food sources have dried up?  There have been 
> > I'm sure, lots of other base closures in Subarctic North 
> America since 
> > the end of the cold war.  Is it possible these previously well-fed 
> > scavengers migrated towards greener pastures over recent years?
> 
> In defense of the bald eagle, it is not a scavenger. It is a 
> raptor, with stereoscopic eyesight, that hunts its prey. All 
> hunting animals in the wild (with the possible exception of 
> man) will take advantage of carrion to some degree. The fact 
> that a hunter will eat food from a dumpster or road kill does 
> not make it a scavenger - scavengers, such as vultures, eat 
> only carrion and do not hunt and kill their prey. A hunter 
> eating carrion (or from a dumpster) can be said to exhibit 
> scavenger-like behavior, but the activity does not reclassify 
> the animal as a scavenger.

To be cynical, I'm not a Ph.D. and do not have the power to reclassify
an animal as anything, but I can use any metaphor I like.  And it is not
as if the animals will take umbrage at the thought.

To be fair to our former cold-war counterparts, Bears raid dumpsters
too.  

Dragons I'm not so sure of.

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