Return To The Sky By Tina Morris — Review

A moving memoir by one of the first women to ever lead a raptor reintroduction project.

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Bald Eagle fishing in Kachemak Bay, Alaska. (Credit: Andy Morffew / CC BY 2.0)

There was a time, not so very long ago, when bald eagles were exceedingly rare, especially in the lower 48 states, having declined from roughly 400,000 birds in the 1800s to just 417 nesting pairs by the 1950s. The fact is that, by 1970, most Americans had never seen a bald eagle in the wild. However, as the US Bicentennial approached, a group of people decided to change that by restoring this iconic national bird to its rightful place in the nation’s skies.

This memoir starts with author Tina Morris’s unconventional zookeeper job interview at the Louisville Zoo, where she overcomes her fear of snakes because she was more afraid to admit it to the Head Curator, who was interviewing her, than she was to hold a snake. Her ruse was successful; she lands the job and soon learns valuable lessons about captivity and human cruelty from the zoo’s two elephants, Mary and Laura, both former circus elephants. Already fond of birds, her fascination and love for birds, especially birds of prey, grows. One day, Ms Morris asks the Head Curator why the zoo didn’t have any raptors in their collection.