Old Abe was an eagle who was a mascot of sorts for Company C of the Eighth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. According to a local article,

Old Abe remains the inspiration for the bald eagle logo representing the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army…

Apparently, there’s a long-running controversy over whether Abe was a boy or a girl. So the museum that has feathers reportedly from the bird had them DNA tested.

Wisconsin Veterans Museum director Michael Telzrow said museum officials arranged for the UW-Madison Biotechnology Center Molecular Archaeology Group to conduct DNA tests on four of the eagle’s feathers to solve a 150-year-old mystery…

The results of recent DNA testing were announced Thursday: Old Abe, Wisconsin’s celebrated “War Eagle,” was a male.

But as we all now know, whether the bird was male or female has nothing to do with its DNA.

In compliance with the new social view on sexuality, the bird’s gender wasn’t based on its anatomy or its biology. Regardless of science, its gender was based on how it felt.

So it seems we’ll never know. Pity.

Repeated at the Stars and Stripes.

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