Aurora reportedly stolen by West Point cadets before game
Air Force and Army played college football game this weekend
Sun 4 Nov 2018 13.27 GMTLast modified on Sun 4 Nov 2018 13.29 GMT
Air Force’s mascot is a white gyrfalcon, similar to this
one photographed in the Canadian Arctic.
Photograph: BBC/Ian McCarthy/BBC
Air Force’s mascot, a 22-year-old white gyrfalcon name Aurora, may have to be euthanized after she was kidnapped in a prank by West Point cadets in the run-up to a college football game this weekend.
Troy Garnhart, the associate athletic director for communications at the Air Force academy, told the Colorado Springs Gazette that Aurora had been taken from a colonel’s house before the annual rivalry game between Air Force and Army on Saturday. Army were hosting the game between the two military academies at Michie Stadium and won 17-14.
“USAFA mascot Aurora was injured over the weekend and is being transported back to Colorado,” academy spokesman Lt Col Tracy Bunko told the Gazette. “We have specialists at the academy who have the best training and facilities for her care. She is part of our academy family and we are all hoping for her full and speedy recovery.”
An academy source told the Gazette that Aurora may have to be euthanized due to her advanced age – gyrfalcon typically live to around 25.
The US Navy and Army academies have a long history of stealing each other’s mascots – goats and mules respectively. However, no one had ever stolen Air Force’s falcon before.
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