‘The Eagle Lady,’ Doris Mager, passes away at age 98
Doris Mager, the woman who thrilled Boca Grande audiences for more than 35 years with her rescue birds, has passed away. She was 98 and left us on November 16, 2023, after suffering a heart attack. She was living in Washington state, where her son and daughter-in-law reside.
Doris was known worldwide as “The Eagle Lady” (dubbed as such by former Florida governor Bob Graham), who once camped in a vacant eagle’s nest in central Florida for a week in June of 1979 to raise awareness for the birds’ endangerment due to human activities. Since 1974, she took live eagles previously harmed by humans to more than 200 classrooms a year. She founded S.O.A.R. – Save Our American Raptors. She was also hired by the Florida Audubon Society in 1962 to sell binoculars and telescopes.
In March of 2016, Mager announced to her audience at the Boca Grande Community Center that the visit that day would be her last. She was too old, she said (at that time she was over 90) and felt she had “done her time.”
At that time, Mager had saved more than 80 injured eagles, one golden eagle and many types of hawks. She had an owl known as her constant companion named “E.T.” (Extra Terrific) that would soundlessly swoop around the auditorium and either settle back on Doris’ shoulder, or sometimes on one of the audience members chosen to stand on stage for the task.
Mager took her birds on the road in a van all over Florida, Georgia and sometimes even farther to educate children and organizations about America’s amazing large birds of prey. One of her regular annual stops was Boca Grande, in a program that was brought to the Community Center by Lee County Parks & Recreation and sponsored by Boca Grande Woman’s Club.
After 35 years of educating and entertaining Boca Grande children, you can be sure that many lives were touched by her passion for birds of prey, and many memories were made.
