Celebrate raptors with author and wildlife biologist Tina Morris as she shares the remarkable story of her trailblazing work to bring the Bald Eagle back from near-extinction in the mid-1970s.

In the spring of 1975, on the eve of the US Bicentennial, Tina was selected to reintroduce Bald Eagles into New York State in the hope that the species could eventually repopulate eastern North America. Young and female in a male-dominated field, Tina was handed an assignment to rehabilitate a population that had been devastated by the effects of DDT. The challenges were prodigious — there was no model to emulate for a bird of the eagle’s size, for one — but Tina soon found that her own path to self-discovery and confidence-building was deeply connected with the survival of the species she was chosen to protect.

Forbes magazine calls Return to the Sky “inspiring …[and] proof that one determined person can still make a difference. At a time when the mass extinction of bird species is a critically important global topic, Dr. Morris reminds us that humans can still be effective guardians of the natural world.”

7 to 8 p.m. at the Harris Center. Space is limited, and registration is required. For more information, including questions about accessibility, contact Susie Spikol.

Co-sponsored by the Harris Center for Conservation Education, the Toadstool Bookshop, and the Hancock Library

About Tina Morris

Raised in a large family and surrounded by myriad orphaned creatures both domestic and wild, Tina Morris was imbued with a lifelong love of animals. After a few wrong turns and a stormy relationship with science in college, she found a way to make her life’s ambition—rescuing endangered birds of prey — into a reality. Tina earned her undergraduate degree from Oberlin College and her graduate degree in ornithology and wildlife biology from Cornell University, where she helped develop the first techniques for releasing introduced Bald Eagles. Her field research ultimately became the instruction manual for eagle restoration programs in other eastern states. Tina was formally inducted as an honorary Iroquois into the Confederacy of Six Nations for her work returning the Bald Eagle to the nation’s skies.