However, her rodeo career was abruptly cut short in a riding accident during a performance at Olympia Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

While performing a trick called the "death drag", she missed a handhold after leaning back too far in her saddle.

She took a job at a fish processing facility on the Spit, the Icicle Seafoods subsidiary Seward Fisheries, in the spring of 1977,[3] where she later became a foreman.

Keene saw offering food to the eagles as a natural extension of her practice of keeping bird feeders filled with sunflower seeds for wild songbirds.

The eagles departed with the arrival of summer, when the Spit became more active with human visitors, but they returned in the winter when tourist season had ended, and Keene resumed the daily feeding.

[3] Within ten years, over 200 bald eagles were visiting during winter and early spring each day, and the job of feeding them became more involved.

Then she would drive the load to her motorhome, about 100 yards (91 m) from the Seward Fisheries plant,[4] and cut the fish into fist-sized pieces to be thrown out to the eagles.

[3] On July 1, 1998, an ammonia leak and explosion at the Seward Fisheries plant caused a fire that led to the evacuation of Homer Spit and the ultimate destruction of the facility,[5] which until then had been the major supplier of fish remains for Keene's feeding operation.

[8] Keene's work has been publicized in Reader's Digest, National Geographic, The Washington Post, People, Life, "Ripley's Believe It or Not!

[11] The news satire program The Daily Show reported on its April 17, 2006, edition that Homer had been overpopulated by bald eagles due in large part to Keene's activities.

Allegedly, some other bird populations in the area, such as sandhill cranes, loons, and kittiwakes, have been driven out or killed by eagles, though there is no direct evidence.

According to an ABC News broadcast, many Homer residents now consider the birds a "menace", as they have been known to cause car accidents and steal pets.

[19] After her death, the Homer city council passed a new resolution banning the feeding of eagles, crows, ravens and other predatory and scavenger birds by any person, effective March 19, 2009.

[20] The resolution's effective date was delayed until spring out of concern that the birds would either die of starvation or become highly aggressive if the feeding ended in the middle of winter.