- West Valley City Mayor Karen Lang lost a "friendly wager" with Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson.
- The wager stemmed from a Chiefs-Falcons game in 2024.
- They volunteered at Tracy Aviary, creating food enrichment for a falcon at the aviary.
SALT LAKE CITY — West Valley City Mayor Karen Lang was feeling pretty confident as her beloved Atlanta Falcons held a 14-7 lead against the Kansas City Chiefs last year.
She had traveled to Mercedes-Benz Stadium with her husband, and with Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson — a Chiefs fan — and her husband on a personal trip the two had planned on for whenever their favorite franchises met up.
"I'm like, 'I kind of feel bad for her,'" Lang said, recalling the game.
Then the Falcons did what she laments they always do — they blew it in the second half. Harrison Butker made a barrage of field goals, and Patrick Mahomes tossed a touchdown, delivering the decisive blow in a 22-17 win for the Chiefs.
Yet, what was a loss for the Falcons then turned into a win for at least one falcon nearly a year later.
That's because Lang and Wilson had placed a "friendly wager" on the outcome of the game, and Lang was pushed to pay up on Thursday. The two mayors visited Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake City, where they carried out a service project by putting together some enrichment for Phoenix, the aviary's 15-year-old aplomado falcon, along with fun items for some of the other zoo birds to play with and eat.
They ended the volunteer trip by helping handle and feed Phoenix.
This punishment — if one could call it that — was one of Lang's suggestions of a fun way to fulfill the wager. She ran the idea by Wilson, who agreed it was a funny and fitting way to also help out the Tracy Aviary birds.
"I think we were trying to come up with something fun because this was not a serious, cutthroat thing," Wilson said.
Getting here was a few years in the making.
Wilson found out that Lang was a die-hard Falcons fan through a news article published in 2021. Lang, whose father raised falcons and other birds in Springville while she was little, explains she was curious about another bird team during the 2012-13 season.
Russell Wilson had become a rookie phenomenon for the Seattle Seahawks and she wanted to see him play live. She and her husband traveled to a playoff game at Atlanta, where they were quickly won over by the Falcons' faithful. Atlanta survived a near collapse to win 30-28, and her fandom was sealed.
As for Jenny Wilson, she became a Chiefs fan because her husband is from the Kansas City area, but largely because former University of Utah great Alex Smith had become the team's quarterback. Yet, she found herself glued to the team even after he was released.
She had also made a similar wager with former Utah County Commissioner Tanner Ainge in the past over the outcome of a Utes-Cougars game, leading to Ainge providing a local food spread at a Salt Lake County Council meeting.
So as the Chiefs and Falcons neared their 2024 matchup — a rare game because they typically play each other once every four years — Wilson and Lang jumped at the opportunity to go, and decided to do something similar.
They're quick to say everything was on their own dime, and that they enjoyed the trip regardless of the outcome.
"It's been a great enhancement to our work together, our friendship," Wilson said, as Lang nodded in agreement.
Tracy Aviary visitors can also help out the same way.
The aviary will hold an all-day event on Sept. 6 to celebrate International Vulture Awareness Day, which will include an enrichment workshop that people of all ages can participate in to help the zoo's birds, said Jaquelin Ortiz, social media and marketing coordinator for the aviary.
"(It's) an engaging activity for our flock. It's something that helps them engage in natural behaviors," she said. "It keeps them happy and healthy."
