Raptor Rapture National Geographic Display Shows Off “Talonted” Birds Of Prey

If looks could kill, hawks and eagles would live on Easy Street; their glaring eyes and sharp talons have made them the symbol of ferocious efficiency.

In fact and of course, birds of prey have to work hard for a living, just like all the rest of Mother Nature’s children. How they go about it is vividly detailed in an extraordinary exhibit at the National Geographic Society.

This show is not nature made nice. This is nature red in beak and claw, and natural science as it is done at gut level. Flesh rips, feathers fly and bones crunch as raptors, which also include falcons, owls and vultures, do what comes naturally: kill prey or consume carrion. It’s likely to be a stunner for city kids raised on Disney.

The exhibit, entitled “Hunters of the Sky,” which was organized by the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Minnesota Raptor Center, is full of factoids made fresh by real-life examples and terrific taxidermy.

The section called “What’s for Dinner?” features stuffed predators looming above dinner plates arrayed with their stuffed or freeze-dried victims.

The humble but vital role of the scavenger is highlighted by a tableau of turkey vultures pulling apart a possum. A more-exalted scavenger, the mighty bald eagle, is represented, warts and all, with a full-size nest and a full admission that our national bird makes its living largely from robbing ospreys and eating dead fish and garbage.

None of these 90 mounted birds was killed for the exhibition, we’re assured; all were found dead or dying. The presence of real birds, even stuffed, lends impact to the shows’ photographs, videos and dioramas, and from time to time there will be live presentations of various birds of prey. The exhibition is far-ranging, addressing the relations of raptors to their environment, to each other, to their prey and to people, the chief meddlers and top predators of all.

The news is generally good, highlighted by the success stories of the bald eagle, the northern spotted owl and the peregrine falcon, and the so-far, so-good effort to capture and breed California condors and send them once more winging wild and free in Western skies.

That more of the 50-odd raptor species found in North America aren’t in serious trouble is remarkable, given the hostility and carelessness that until recently characterized our relations with them. Well within living memory, many states offered bounties on hawks and eagles. Now our birds of prey are so rigidly protected that it’s illegal even to pick up a raptor feather found on the ground.

Countless raptors were killed when they perched or nested on power-line towers, most of which have been modified to prevent such inadvertent electrocutions. Even more devastating was the widespread use of persistent pesticides that accumulated and increasingly concentrated in the tissues of worms, bugs and fish, in the bodies of the birds that ate them, and finally in the bodies of the birds that ate the birds.

One of the most interesting and upbeat sections of the show demonstrates the work of wildlife rehabilitators, who tend weak and injured birds, and if possible, restore them to the wild. Broken legs are splintered, shattered wings are reconstructed with pins and wire, and gaping wounds are sewn up with almost-invisible stitches. When the birds are released, only a curmudgeon’s heart could fail to soar with them.

HUNTERS OF THE SKY, through Jan. 5 at Explorers Hall, National Geographic Society (202) 857-7588.