Camp workers fired for rescuing bald eagle want new policies

 

WASHINGTON — Two Boy Scout summer camp workers who were fired for rescuing a bald eagle say the camp needs a specific policy for how to deal with injured wildlife.

“I want there to be an actual policy,” said Eliana Bookbinder.

Bookbinder, 20, and her twin brother, Jeremy Bookbinder, of Accokeek, Maryland, were fired after an incident on June 26 at Camp Marriott, on the Goshen Scout Reservation in Goshen, Virginia.

They didn’t think an injured young bald eagle found near the camp would survive the night to be collected by a game warden the next day. They were shocked, they said, when an Eagle Scout supervisor told them to leave the badly injured animal alone.

“I could not, as a Scout and ethical human being, leave this animal out overnight to be eaten by coyotes or skunks or whatever,” Eliana Bookbinder said.

The Boy Scouts of America has a coed program for girls and women 14 to 20 years old.

The Bookbinders have experience handling raptors, they said, from volunteering at the Clearwater Nature Center in Clinton, Maryland, so they captured the bird and took it to a wildlife rehabilitator.

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