Red Fox Suspected In Eagle's Death

A wild red fox was the likely predator that got into a bald eagle's enclosure at the National Zoo and killed the bird, zoo officials said Wednesday.

The 21-year old male eagle, housed separately from two bald eagles that are unable to fly, died July 4, the same day that the zoo celebrated a new exhibit designed especially for bald eagles hurt in the wild.

Zoo officials and wildlife experts think it was a fox because of the way the eagle was attacked, the fact that the predator did not take the eagle's food and the size and location of possible entry to the exhibit. Also, red foxes are common in the area and have been found on zoo grounds in the past.

An initial analysis of a hair sample found in the exhibit was determined to be most likely that of a red fox, though more analysis will be done.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Humane Society of the United States were among those that examined information from the July 2 attack.

The attacked eagle was housed separately from the zoo's two new eagles that were donated by American Eagle Foundation based at singer Dolly Parton's Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

The exhibit, which dates to the 1920s, housed the eagle for the past 20 years with no previous attacks, zoo general curator William Xanten said.

Scientists had originally thought the predator was a large cat.

The death comes shortly before the start of an independent review, conducted at the request of Congress, into recent animal deaths at the zoo.

Xanten was hired as the zoo's general curator after more than a dozen high profile animal deaths, reports CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson: rats ate half the prairie dogs; two zebras starved to death; two red pandas ate rat poison.

But Richard Farinato of the Humane Society said that with the eagle's death, critics don't see much improvement.

"When you see an animal like this die, you say 'what really has changed?'" said Farinato. "So far I don't see that a lot has changed."