Bald eagle populations plummeted in the mid-20th Century, the result of mass poisoning by DDT, and long-term effects of human predation, harassment and development. Today, the resurgence of the Pacific Northwest bald eagle population rewards efforts of conservationists.

“From a biological standpoint, they are not an endangered species anymore, there are enough individuals for the population to maintain. The population needs a good distribution to sustain,” said Frank Isaacs, a senior faculty research assistant at Oregon State University who works with the Oregon Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. He said bald eagles are highly adaptable, but prefer forested areas with mature trees, for habitat, which provide adequate platforms for nests and some security from the elements. Such sites, not currently supporting resident bald eagles, are still found along Oregon’s north and central coast.
A study tracking nesting populations of bald eagles was initiated in 1978, and Isaacs began work on the project in 1979. At that time, approximately 100 known nesting pairs of bald eagles remained in Oregon. Today the number of known nesting pairs in Oregon approaches 500.

Less protection for habitat will be the most dramatic consequence of delisting the species from the Endangered Species Act, said Isaacs, noting part of success during this resurgence has been concerted habitat protection. He said Oregon’s undeveloped public lands will, in theory, enable the population. Bald eagle resurgence is the result of protection measures, including banning use of the pesticide DDT in the late 60s, coupled with the momentum of population growth. Isaacs said, while suitable habitat remains, and in the absence of new poisons, it is likely the bald eagle will continue to thrive. “They’re very plastic in their ability to use different habitats and eat different kinds of food and put up with different human activities.”

Current generations haven’t been harassed or hunted by humans, as preceding generations had been. “The birds we follow nowadays seem to be a lot more tolerant of human activity than the birds were 25 years ago,” said Isaacs, “and I think that’s because of generational changes in both people and eagles. They are used to human activity, and are much more apt to nest in proximity to human activity.”

In addition to resident nesters, Isaacs explained, “Oregon is a kind of crossroads, or mixing grounds, for eagles moving up and down the western flyways: the Pacific and the inter-mountain flyways,” said Isaacs, “And birds from far north come south into Oregon during the winter. And birds from the south, such as southern California and Arizona, come north into Oregon after their nesting season.”

Isaacs said the first bird book written for Oregon was completed in the late 1800s, “and there is a mention in there of 10 pairs of bald eagles around Yaquina Bay. Today we know of about five or so. If that late 1800s report is an indication of the population of eagles before the country was settled, then we may still see an increase in eagle numbers in that area.”

Common murres

David Pitkin, wildlife biologist with the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuges Complex, a division of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, said the resurgence of bald eagles is taxing populations of common murres on the north and central Oregon coasts, with several effects.

Every year the FWS surveys a subset of seabird colonies, with the entire seabird population on the Oregon coast counted only periodically. In 1988 a full count showed more than 400,000 nesting murres supported on Oregon’s north and central coast colonies. Currently, a full count is being compiled for 2006. Though the data has not been quantified, Pitkin said, “we know there have been major effects by bald eagles. Our assumption is, there will be a lot fewer than 400,000 murres, in these colonies, after were are through counting.”

Pitkin explained, when an eagle goes out to a seabird colony, three things can happen, and sometimes all three:

* Direct take of seabirds on a colony; whereby an eagle seizes a murre, or two, and takes them away to eat somewhere else;

* Secondary predation of seabird colonies by gulls, ravens and crows, which come in after an eagle scatters seabirds, leaving eggs and nestlings exposed; and

* Complete abandonment of seabird colonies caused by eagles habitually perching within traditional seabird colony sites. This perching behavior is especially characteristic of young, usually non-breeding eagles. (An example of a rock abandoned by common murres is Gull Rock, off Otter Crest).

Bald eagles started to hunt common murres on Gull Rock, off Otter Crest, in the mid-90s - and have had several effects. At the time the bald eagle predation began, 15 to 30 thousand common murres nested on Colony Rock, approximately 5 miles south of Gull Rock, off Yaquina Head. Since the mid-90s, the numbers of common murres on Colony Rock have increased, and this year more than 70,000 common murres attempted to breed there. Pitkin said it is believed the increase represents common murres which abandoned Gull Rock.

“Colony Rock may be the densest murre colony in the world now,” said Pitkin, “When a murre comes into Colony Rock now, usually it has to land on top of other murres, and filter down to the rock … Like standing in a crowded elevator … there might be up to 50 murres per square meter on that rock.” On the margins Brandt’s cormorants, a bigger bird, find the nesting space they can.

An entire generation of common murres has now passed since the 50s and 60s, and the new generations are subject to an abundance of aerial predators without prior habituation. Pitkin said common murres on Colony Rock have habituated to eagles coming out and attacking directly, by scattering only nearby the snatching spot, rather than across the whole rock, as would previously have been considered commonplace. “It behooves them to do that, because every time they flee in panic, they’re open to predation from gulls, ravens and crows, around all the time and always waiting for an opportunity to go in there and steal eggs and chicks.”

Pitkin said when adult bald eagles snag their prey they typically return to feed at their nests; whereas non-breeders will remain perched in the midst of colonies to devour their kill. Bald eagles don’t perch on Colony Rock, and Pitkin said it’s been surmised the proximity of the lighthouse and attendant visitors might dissuade them.

Interestingly, where peregrine falcons have established territories, fewer eagle attacks are recorded on common murres resident of pelagic mounts therein.

“We don’t have a very good idea, along the Oregon coast, what the natural equilibrium was, between the nesting seabirds and bald eagles and human predators. We know the natives that lived along the coast used the seabird colonies as very valuable food resources,” said Pitkin, “We don’t know what those effects were, and we know before the big crash in the bald eagle population there were a heck of a lot of eagles along the coast.”

Pitkin said he would guess, interactions observed between bald eagles and common murres today, are returning toward a more historically characteristic equilibrium. Noting a lack of human predation, and the abysmal numbers of bald eagles in recent decades, Pitkin said, “My assumption is common murre numbers along the north and central Oregon coast have increased quite a bit over the last 40 or 50 years compared to what they were historically, and now they’re beginning to decline with the resurgence of natural predation by bald eagles, occurring along the north and central Oregon coast.”

Endangered Species Act

It seems likely the FWS will remove the bald eagle from the Endangered Species Act, the federal list of threatened and endangered species. It was recently announced the decision will be postponed, to be resolved no later than June 29, 2007. The FWS had been under a court ordered deadline of Feb. 16, 2007 to make a final decision on bald eagle status due to a pending lawsuit brought by Minnesota developer who had issues with a few bald eagles’ nests and sued the FWS to make a decision on whether or not to take the bird off the list. The developer cited the 1999 FWS proposal to delist the bald eagle, which was not acted upon. The court approved the extension until June 29.

The FWS reports the additional four months will be time to complete additional analyses related to the final rule and put in place management guidelines and procedures that will make it easier for the public to understand ongoing protections of the Bald and Golden Eagle Act, ensuring the bald eagle continues to thrive once delisted.

Once delisted from the Endangered Species Act, bald eagles will continue to be protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (BGEPA) and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). Both acts protect bald eagles by prohibiting killing, selling or otherwise harming eagles, their nests or eggs. The BGEPA also protects eagles from disturbance.

Coast Guard helicopters are used for lots of rescues, but they’re not usually like this.

A Texas man’s expensive pet bird got loose, so he climbed about 60 feet up a pine tree to retrieve it. Then they got stuck.

After the man’s sister called 9-1-1, firefighters discovered they couldn’t back up their truck to the tree because of wet ground. So they called in the Coast Guard chopper. It lowered William Hart and his two-thousand-dollar cockatoo named Geronimo safely to the ground.

Hart says Geronimo is his baby and he’d do it again.

For those who enjoy bird watching, The Old Farmer’s Almanac All-Seasons Garden Guide suggests several bird-attracting plants.

Aster: This plant’s late summer to autumn daisylike flowers develop tasty seed heads sought by cardinals, chickadees, finches, nuthatches, and many other seed eaters.

Goldenrod: Goldenrod’s showy panicles of golden-yellow flowers appear from late summer to fall on clumps of upright to branching leafy stems, providing food (flower seeds) and cover for birds. Its nectarrich flowers attract insects, which are a feast for bluebirds, mockingbirds, warblers, wrens, and other insect eaters; goldfinches and other small birds relish the seed heads.

Common elderberry: More than 120 bird species seek food, shelter, and nesting sites here. In early summer, beautiful, large, umbel-shape heads of creamy-white flower clusters attract hummingbirds; late summer to autumn’s heavy crop of purple to black berries draws catbirds, orioles, robins, tanagers, thrashers, warblers, waxwings, and woodpeckers, to name a few.

Dogwood: This tree offers summer shelter and nesting sites. From late summer to fall and occasionally into winter, its small, fleshy fruit attract more than 90 species of birds, including bluebirds, cardinals, grosbeaks, jays, sparrows, tanagers, thrushes, vireos, many warblers, waxwings, and woodpeckers; some birds hunt for insects in the bark.

When it comes to bird-watching, it’s not just about binoculars and an identification guide anymore.

The newest technology is used in modern-day birding — Global Positioning System units, BlackBerrys, iPods and bird-alert services. And for the not-so-faint-of-heart, there’s extreme birding, a combination of birding and roughing it in the outdoors.

“(Birding) can be great exercise, and you set the pace. It’s a great sport, you can do it all your life,” says Lisa Berger, Web editor for the Greater Ozarks Audubon Society.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 46 million Americans observed, fed or photographed birds in 2001, and they spent $6 billion on birding equipment.

Adds Andrew Kinslow, a high school biology teacher in Rogersville and extreme birder: “There’s nothing more grand than looking at life itself.”

Getting technical

Birders love GPS units, Berger says.

“We use those all the time because you may see something interesting, and if you give the coordinates, it helps others find the areas,” Berger says.

But that’s just the beginning of the technological aspect of birding. When birders find particularly interesting sites and birds, they often alert their bird-loving friends immediately through their PDAs.

Birders also use their PDAs to download bird calls for identification. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers free .wav files of bird sounds to download to computers or hand-held devices. The National Geographic Society has a mobile interactive field guide for PDAs that uses an eBird checklist to store bird-sighting data that you can later download to your desktop computer. The device may be purchased as an all-in-one PDA — a Tungsten E2 Palm Pilot — or as SD card software, compatible with many PDAs.

Using PDAs and bird songs to attract birds, however, is causing an ethical stir, as the sounds may attract birds away from their nests at inopportune times and disrupt birds’ habitats.

After seeing a bird, many birders record information on a bird alert system.

“There are lots of bird alert systems,” Berger says. “Many state ornithological societies maintain a (system) where an individual becomes a subscriber. A subscriber sends an e-mail to the (system), which then sends that message to all the subscribers.”

Online forums

The Greater Ozarks Audubon Society offers an opportunity for birders to discuss birding online, Berger says.

“We chat about which migrant species are showing up in the state in spring and fall, make announcements about upcoming and impromptu field trips, talk about identification, list what we’ve seen on trips and more,” she says.

The eBird site is an online record-keeping database sponsored by Cornell and the Audubon Society.

“An individual or group registers a site, like a favorite hot spot or even a back yard, then adds species to the eBird list after each outing,” Berger says.

Getting started

Lest you think birding is only done by aging nature lovers, Berger says there’s a trend of birders in their late-teens and early 20s. She says sometimes these birders drop out for a while, and then reappear with families.

Kinslow is one Gen X birder who never stopped birding. Kinslow grew up birding and continued his interest in all things avian in college, where he worked on research projects that took him into the field to search for nests, band birds and conduct censuses, among other tasks.

Today, he never travels without a pair of binoculars — even when he commutes to school on his bicycle. In the summer, he integrates bird-watching and banding into a summer school class.

Kinslow says Passive Integrated Transponder tags are another technology being used in the birding world for research. Stores use these tags to keep track of their inventory, but birders like to use these microchips encoded with unique identification numbers when studying birds. Made to resemble lichen, moss or twigs, these tags can be easily disguised in nests and last for generations of birds. Kinslow says the tags are used to track birds that reuse their nests, such as owls and eagles.

Another new technology for tracking birds is weather radar.

“Birds show up as big rain drops, so if the skies are clear, and the radar shows a big storm front, it is actually showing bird migration,” Kinslow says. “This is especially used on the Gulf Coast and in migratory funnels, such as Hawk Ridge in Minnesota and Whitefish Point in Michigan.”

Before leaving on a trip, Kinslow checks space imaging software such as Google Earth or TerraServer to locate bird habitat.

Going extreme

Some birders go to the extreme to view birds. Berger calls this “gonzo birding.”

“For example, two years ago, I drove all night on a Friday after work with two other gonzos to arrive in Duluth, Minn., by morning. We proceeded to log all the species we could before heading home Sunday morning. We spun off the highway in freezing fog, went down a 100-foot, 45-degree embankment backwards, then drove out of it through a downed portion of barbed-wire fence Š none the worse,” Berger says. “When we pulled back onto the access road, we noticed house finches in the trees.”

Another avid bird-watcher in the Springfield area is Bo Brown. An outdoor enthusiastic and wilderness survival instructor, Brown’s eclectic lifestyle combines avocation with vocation, as he travels to conduct research for the Audubon Society and government organizations.

Brown also is classified as a gonzo. His birding trips have taken him to Costa Rica, where he lived out of a backpack, and to Alaska.

“Sometimes I go on manic birding trips, with three to four days of nonstop birding,” he confesses.

An adventurous baboon who left his troop in Tokai to trek across the Cape Flats, caused much consternation before he was darted on Wednesday.

Jenni Trethowan who is with the baboon monitoring group Baboon Matters said it was likely the young male, called David, was searching for a new troop to join.

But David encountered many obstacles, including a very busy main road.

On Wednesday, he caused drama in Claremont’s Main Road.

David’s adventures brought him a gash on his leg, which Trethowan said could be from another baboon or a dog-bite.

With the help of the SPCA, David was darted on Wednesday afternoon and taken to a vet in Sun Valley for treatment.

Trethowan said it was a reasonably deep flesh wound, right through his muscles.

He was scheduled to stay at the vet for the night, pending a decision to take him to a rehabilitation centre in Barrydale.

David was first spotted by Constantia residents on Tuesday and he made his way during the day to the roof of Claremont police station. He spent the night somewhere nearby before he apparently made for Wynberg on Wednesday.

While in Claremont, David was surrounded and tranquillised.

When auto mechanic Don Doucette opened the hood of an SUV on Wednesday, he saw a fur ball staring back at him.

A cat, likely, a stray, was stuck in the engine block. The owner of the vehicle brought the SUV in for servicing when she smelled a strong odor of cat urine.

“I just happened to look down at the air box and the headlight and I saw the cat still stuck,” Doucette said. “I didn’t know what to make of it. It freaked me out a little bit.”

Doucette was surprised the orange tabby was still alive.

The cat was taken to Springfield Animal Hospital and treated.

The cat has an injured paw but is expected to fully recover. Hospital staff believes the paw was most likely burned from being in the engine.

If the cat is not claimed it will be put up for adoption.