The Air Force Academy's beloved white gyrfalcon mascot made healthy strides Sunday morning after suffering serious injuries, leaving academy officials hopeful that she would recover.
"Aurora returned home last night and as of this morning was able to fly around her pen," Lt. Col. Tracy Bunko said Sunday in a statement. "She will see a specialist later today who will determine if X-rays are necessary, but this is an extremely good sign."
Academy officials had feared the worst after the 22-year-old mascot suffered injuries to both wings during a visit to West Point, N.Y., for Air Force-Army week.
West Point issued an apology Sunday morning for the incident that injured Aurora.
An Air Force representative told The Gazette under the condition of anonymity that Aurora was hurt when she was taken from an Army colonel's home as part of a prank by West Point cadets. While being kept by the cadets, both of the bird's wings were injured, the source said.
Air Force associate athletic director Troy Garnhart would only confirm that Aurora was hurt during the football team's trip to West Point and that officials were still working out whether she was indeed injured in a prank.
Since the academy was founded in 1954, no foe has gotten to one of the school's birds. The birds are guarded at the academy and have an assigned cadet guardian when they travel. Aurora was the grand dame of the school's falconry program, which includes a half-dozen birds managed by a dozen cadets. For more than two decades, she has traveled with cadets, posing for crowds.
On several occasions, including at a football game last season, the mascot has flown away. The most recent incident ended when a cadet corralled the bird in a parking lot, but other escapes have been more extreme.
In one instance, one of the school's birds escaped at a bowl game in New Orleans and was found hours later and miles away.
According to tetonraptorcenter.org, a gyrfalcon can live to be 25 years in captivity.
Mother's love costly
A former NCAA champion was disqualified from the LPGA's qualifying event after hitting a ball that had been moved by her mother from out of bounds back into play.
The ball in question belonged to Doris Chen, whose drive on the 17th hole of Pinehurst No. 7 in the seventh round of the LPGA's Q-Series came to rest beyond the out of bounds stakes. The LPGA said in a statement: "An outside agency moved her ball back in bounds. Ms. Chen and her caddie were made aware that the ball had been moved. Doris elected to play the ball, which was a wrong ball by definition, from its altered lie."
Because Chen did not penalize herself for the violation before teeing off on the next hole, she was disqualified for breaching Rule 15-3b.
Sources told both Golf Channel and Golfweek that Chen's mother had moved the ball back into play. An LPGA source told Golf Channel's Randell Mell that a homeowner on the course witnessed the infraction and described the woman to LPGA officials, who identified the culprit as Chen's mother, Yuh-Guey Lin.
Chen, 25, won the 2010 U.S. Girls Junior Championship and the 2014 NCAA individual title at USC.
Sports on 11/05/2018