Our Zoo’s founder, Dr. Harry Wegeforth, obtained our first crowned eagle, a female, in Nairobi in 1930. The world’s first zoo-born crowned eagle hatched at the San Diego Zoo in April 1996, and the parents went on to produce five more offspring over the years.
Today, we have a male crowned eagle that can be seen across from the bonobos in the Zoo’s Lost Forest.
Crowned eagles are fairly common throughout their range, since they prefer thick forests where people don't usually live. If they venture out in open lands where livestock is normally found, they are sometimes shot by ranchers who fear the eagles might prey on their livestock. But since crowned eagles prefer forest habitat, their greatest threat comes from people destroying those forests and killing prey animals the eagles need.