Meeting Philadelphia's game day bird

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Ali Reid was live from the Elmwood Park Zoo in Norristown, Pennsylvania, on Jan. 24 with Noah, a live mascot for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Transcript

00:00All right, I swear I didn't pitch this story, but live outside of Philadelphia, we go here

00:03because there is a big game coming up on Sunday. Our Allie Reed joins us just outside of Philadelphia.

00:10Yeah, she's live at the Elmwood Park Zoo with a very special guest. Allie, what can you tell us?

00:20Well, here's the thing, is that when you put Ari and I into a room and then you go live on TV for

00:25people all over the country, I'm sorry, we're just going to rub it in your face a little bit

00:28more that we're Eagles fans, okay? That's just what we do here in Philadelphia. But the game,

00:33big game on Sunday, and there is a reason why I'm live at the Elmwood Park Zoo this morning. Laura,

00:38how are you? I'm great. Thanks for having me on. And thanks for having us, by the way. This is

00:42really exciting. I want to get right to it. There's someone special with us today, and there's

00:47a big reason here. And who is this? This is Noah. He is one of our live ambassador Eagles here at

00:53Elmwood Park Zoo, and he also happens to be one of the official live mascots for the Philadelphia

00:58Eagles. He's going to show off his big wings for you there this morning. Wow. I mean, how cool is

01:02that, right? And what's really cool about Noah is that he goes to all of the home games and talk to

01:09me about kind of what he does when he's there. Yeah. So he's been doing this for 10 seasons now.

01:13We are at every home football game with either Noah or our other Eagle, Reggie. We go down out

01:17on the plaza to meet fans up close. So it gives everybody who is a Birds fan, in the sense of the

01:22football team, a chance to actually meet their official mascot and our national symbol. Okay.

01:26And I think also many people that are watching at home who don't live in Philly may say, okay,

01:31we're not an Eagles fan, right? We're talking football. But I think most people can agree that

01:36an Eagle is pretty cool. And I think we can all be fans on that. I mean, it really is something

01:40special. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, our goal when we go down to the games, obviously,

01:44is to support the local team. We're in Norristown, so we are Birds fans here. But we're really looking

01:49to meet an audience that we wouldn't ordinarily see to share information about bald Eagles. They

01:54are a bird that has a great conservation success story, and they're pretty impressive. You know,

01:59generally people don't get to see them quite this close. And a lot of training actually goes into

02:03making sure our ambassadors can do their job successfully. You know, Noah, unfortunately,

02:07can't be released into the wild. He is missing an eye. That happened at a very young age. He

02:11came under human care. But even though he can't be a wild bird, he has an opportunity to help

02:15protect the birds out in the wild by spreading information and hopefully building a relationship

02:20with those fans. Well, yeah. And you make a good point, you know, talking about your

02:23conservation efforts, but then also sharing that with. And I think that's really cool.

02:28You are hitting an audience that may not have thought about that before going to a location

02:32that maybe you wouldn't typically see an animal quite like this. But I think that's really special

02:37that you're able to do that for people here. Yeah, it's a really big goal of us to spread

02:40that conservation message and to hopefully let people know that, you know, Eagles need to come

02:44back because of our actions. There is you know, we have an impact on our world. And obviously,

02:49you know, the lot goes into preparing our birds. Well, Noah might not be the most cuddly guy. He

02:54is a good example of a bird's fan and a great example for his species. You can see he's got

02:59a pretty big wingspan. They've got about a seven foot wingspan, which is really impressive.

03:03And he has dozen incredible eyesight, even though he only has one eye. So when we're at the games,

03:08you can see Meg, his handler today is hyper focused on him. That's entirely her job. We

03:12always make sure that our birds, first and foremost, are comfortable and calm and that

03:16they have the choice to come out and do this job. Now, again, you mentioned his personality and how

03:20that is a pretty good tie into an Eagles fan. Yeah, I would say, yeah, that he probably has

03:25a good personality that matches really well to to people that root for the birds. There's no doubt

03:30about it. But he's he's really cool. And again, he's been an ambassador for the Eagles 10 years,

03:35but has been here a lot longer than that. He's been with us for about 17 years. Yeah, he is

03:40turning 24 this year. So he's about a middle aged guy. Amazing. OK, so we've only got a few

03:46more seconds. I'd be curious to hear for those that are watching right now. What are we going

03:49to be talking about in the next hour? Yeah. So we will be meeting up with Noah again to talk a

03:53little bit more about how we focus on that eagle conservation and their amazing comeback from the

03:57brink of extinction. I love it, guys. We're going to be live in about 30 minutes to continue this

04:01conversation. Do not go anywhere. And I'm sorry, I'm just going to continue to wrap the Eagles

04:08again Sunday. Noah and his friend Reggie will be there at the game. Really exciting for those that

04:13are in this area. And now we just hope, will the Eagles pull out a win for us? We'll see.

04:20Our producer, Barry, again, I mentioned it. Barry roots for the Commanders. Sadam, our other producer,

04:26roots for the Kansas City Chiefs. And then we've got some Eagles fans in the house, too.

04:30We'll see how the games play out this weekend. If there wasn't such a delay, I'd go back and

04:34forth spelling E-A-G-L-E-S. You know how the rest of it goes. With Allie, but that would just go so

04:41bad. There's a delay out there. Spoken. Listen, Eagles fans, everything you hear about Eagles

04:48fans are true. I'm married to one and what I'm seeing here is the same. All right, Miss Allie,

04:54we'll talk to you in a little bit.

Category

Transcript

Recommended