This story appears in the January 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine.

Last January on Unalaska Island, Suzi Golodoff poured herself a hot cup of coffee, pulled on her boots, and stepped outside. She was immediately assaulted. “I’m pretty sure they were watching me leave the house, saw I had something in my mug, and waited,” she said. “I could have lost a finger.” But she didn’t. She was one of the lucky ones.

Her assailants were bald eagles, Haliaeetus leucocephalus—or Dutch Harbor pigeons, as they’re known around this fishing port in the Aleutian chain on the edge of the Bering Sea.

Especially during fishing season, hundreds of eagles come to scavenge and nest in the area, which is home to about 4,400 human residents. The birds make their presence known from atop telephone poles and stoplights. They accost people who wander too close during nesting season, sending victims to the medical clinic for scalp stitches. And they swarm every boat that comes into port, festooning the rigging by the dozen like baleful Christmas ornaments.