When she turns to look at you, and her eyes fix on your position, it feels as though you are suddenly thrust under a spotlight, captured in the intensity of her gaze. The first time I saw her at the World Center for Birds of Prey, it gave me chills from head to toe. She was massive, the largest eagle I had ever seen. Osa’s feathers swayed atop her crest as she cocked her head to look at the faint image of myself behind the glass.
The docent approached me remarking “Amazing, isn’t she?”
I agreed and remarked, it’s almost hard to believe she is real.
I asked him her name and he could only give me a number as he explained that they try to not develop an attachment to the birds. I noticed something troubling and I asked him why her right wing was held quite a bit lower than her left.
He said it had been broken when the tree she was nesting in somewhere in Central America was felled during deforestation of the rain forest. He indicated that he thought her chicks had been killed but that they were able to rescue her and secure her for the breeding program.
She was brought to Boise by The Peregrine Fund along with 18 other Harpies to help in the efforts to try to save the entire species from extinction.
Osa’s mate suddenly rose from the floor near the wall where he had been roosting just out of sight. He flew up onto the branch next to her and again it took my breath away.
He was so regal, so proud and so gorgeous.
The story of what we as humans are doing to our planet hit home in a way it hadn’t ever before as I stood there looking at these magnificent creatures that we are slowly killing off.
I was stunned by Osa’s story. I had trouble thinking of her only as a number and so I started referring to her as Osa while I was working on the artwork of her. I named her after the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica where the Harpies were barely holding on. She was the most magnificent creature I think I’d ever seen. She was the inspiration to start something, anything to help this organization.
The Peregrine Fund does so much great work to preserve the Earth’s rarest, most beautiful creatures. This organization is at the cutting edge of this effort with programs around the world, actively, literally saving species from extinction. The Peregrine Fund has helped conserve a wide variety of species, beginning in the 70's with the Peregrine Falcon and the Bald Eagle, to the California Condor, the Harpy Eagle and the Aplomado Falcon. Their valiant work goes on, and they need support.
This is why Art With Impact Gallery was created and it is why Osa is our logo. She represents what it is to take action as The Peregrine Fund did to save her and her species. I thought it appropriate to tell her story as she inspired our story. Hopefully that inspiration continues far into the future and generates the help that is so desperately needed to make changes to protect and preserve Earths' treasures before it is too late.
CC Wari