For over three decades, a trip to Dollywood came with an unexpected encounter: locking eyes with a bald eagle. The Eagle Mountain Sanctuary, run in partnership with the American Eagle Foundation, turned Dolly Parton's Tennessee theme park into an unlikely classroom for wildlife conservation — one where millions of visitors got a close-up look at the national bird alongside lessons on how the species clawed its way back from the brink.
That chapter is now closing. A 2026 storm left the sanctuary damaged beyond a simple patch-up, and rather than rebuild on-site, the American Eagle Foundation has opted to relocate its non-releasable bald eagles permanently to its larger campus in Kodak, Tennessee — a 50-acre hub the organization has been operating since 2023.
