Ezekiel Saldana, 4, Sang ‘God Bless America’ to Chinook, a Bald Eagle That Can’t Fly, and the San Antonio Zoo Gave His Family a MembershipSun, November 15, 2026 at 11:00 PM UTC
Stuart Seeger from San Antonio, Texas, USA - CC BY 2.0/Wikimedia Commons
An American flag, with a bald eagle perched in a tree above it, was what 4-year-old Ezekiel Saldana noticed on a school field trip to the San Antonio Zoo, and he answered by singing “God Bless America” to the bird. The eagle is Chinook, who cannot fly because of a wing injury, and after the video spread online the zoo gave Ezekiel’s family free memberships for the rest of the year, according to the San Antonio Express-News story by Katie Bartlett, carried Life.
Ezekiel, from Floresville, Texas, had just learned the song for Veterans Day. His mother, Alexandra Delgado, filmed the moment, and the video drew millions of views.
A song learned for Veterans Day
Ezekiel learned “God Bless America” in his after-school choir, which he asked to join, the Express-News reported. When he saw the eagle above the flag, he connected the two with the song he had been practicing.
His parents, Delgado and Johnny Saldana, were chaperoning the trip. Delgado called the moment of watching her son link the song, the flag and the eagle “a little proud mom moment,” and she said “the video was never supposed to go viral, never supposed to be a big thing.”
The recording is what carried the moment beyond the zoo. According to the Express-News, the clip spread widely on social media, and the zoo’s own Instagram post, which said a bald eagle had been unexpectedly serenaded, put it in front of more people.
Ezekiel’s own explanation for singing to the bird was short: “Because it was about America.”
After the video took off, the San Antonio Zoo gave the family free memberships for the rest of the year. According to the Express-News, Ezekiel went back to the zoo on Veterans Day to sing again, and Chinook stayed long enough for a photo with him.
Who Chinook is and why he is at the zoo
Chinook hatched in 1995 and came to the San Antonio Zoo in 2017 with a left wing injury that prevents him from flying, the Express-News reported. He shares his habitat with another injured eagle, Haley.
Both birds are rescues. When the zoo held a ribbon-cutting for a new bald eagle habitat in its Birds of the World area on March 4, 2021, WOAI reported that Chinook, a male, was injured near an airport in Washington state, and that Haley, a female, was found shot in Ohio.
Many zoos house eagles that cannot be released. The National Zoo’s page names two of its own, Tioga and Annie, who cannot fly because of wing injuries. Tioga is 23 and was rescued as a fledgling, while Annie was at least 5 when she was rescued and may have been older.
Haley’s story was told when she arrived. KSAT reported in March 2017 that she was shot in one wing in 1998 and that the wound left her unable to fly. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruled that she could not be released into the wild, the station said, and she lived at several zoos before coming to San Antonio. She went on exhibit in time for spring break that year, KSAT said, and officials planned to bring a male eagle to keep her company.
The Smithsonian’s National Zoo says that every bald eagle in human care is a rescue and that keeping the birds otherwise is illegal. Its page on bald eagle care says eagles in human care can reach about 50 years of age, compared with roughly 20 to 30 years in the wild, and that eagles with wing injuries need perches wrapped to reduce pressure on their feet.
What the bald eagle stands for
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the country adopted the bald eagle as its national symbol in 1782. Females, the larger sex, can reach a wingspan of about 8 feet, and males up to about 6 feet, which is the range for a male like Chinook. The agency says the species was endangered by habitat loss, shooting and the pesticide DDT, and was removed from the Endangered Species Act list in 2007 after recovering. The page estimates about 316,700 eagles in the lower 48 states, based on 2018 and 2019 data, and says anecdotal accounts suggest the country had about 100,000 nesting eagles when the bird was adopted as the emblem.
The agency also says eagles remain protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which prohibit killing, selling or otherwise harming eagles, their nests or their eggs. Young eagles face high death rates from disease, starvation, bad weather and hazards such as collisions with cars and power lines, and the page says about 70 percent of eaglets survive their first year.
Chinook’s age puts those numbers in perspective. Hatched in 1995, he is around 30 years old, which matches the roughly 30 years the agency gives for eagles in the wild, and the agency says eagles can live longer in captivity. The National Zoo’s figure for birds in human care is about 50 years, so Chinook may have many years ahead of him in San Antonio.
Johnny Saldana told the Express-News that the video showed his son’s personality. With the memberships good through the end of the year, the family has a standing invitation to return to the eagle that Ezekiel sang to, and to the habitat where Chinook and Haley live.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Stuart Seeger from San Antonio, Texas, USA – CC BY 2.0/Wikimedia Commons
Source: Nature
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