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Eagle Nature Foundation
2009 Status of the Bald Eagle
By Terrence N. Ingram
The Eagle Nature Foundation has just compiled the results of its 2009 Annual
Midwinter Bald Eagle Count and the results show that the bald eagle population, at
least in the Midwest, is experiencing a very severe problem that must be
addressed as soon as possible. The overall percentage of immatures has
continued its downward trend. this time 2.4% to bring the level down to 21.2%.
Only once in the past 40 years of conducting these counts has the level been lower
and that was just two years ago, when it had reached 19.7 %.
For the previous ten years of these counts just before the bald eagle was even
placed on the Endangered Species List this percentage of immatures was higher
than it is this year. During that period the percentage of immatures was over 30%
for four different years and between was between 25% and 30% for four years. In
the year 2000 this percentage peaked at 38.9 % and basically has been on a
decline ever since.
Because this downward trend, which we have been recording for nine years, is not
reversing itself the Fish and Wildlife Service should seriously consider placing the
bald eagle back on the Endangered Species List. If the F&W does not do it
voluntarily, we as citizens need to force them to do what is right and take this
action. The bald eagle is not just another species. It is our National Symbol and
we all have an obligation to be watching its population changes very carefully.
The bald eagle should never have been removed from the Endangered Species
List in 2007. For any species to be removed from the List only sound scientific
facts should be used. These facts should be much more comprehensive and
accurate, than those which were used to place that species on the List. That is
because so much more research should have been done to learn what was
needed to recover the species. This is not true with the bald eagle. Delist “facts”
which were used were fabricated by someone sitting behind a desk.
We know this as a fact because the bald eagle was to be delisted all across the
nation in 2007. Our nation’s Southwestern Bald Eagle Population was not delisted
as F&W had planned to do, but only after being prevented from doing so by a
lawsuit. It was proven in court that someone high up in F&W said that delisting the
bald eagle was a policy call and their employees need to support it. Anyone can
read the decision of the judge in this lawsuit to see how F&W employees stated
that they “had marching orders to support it (policy call).” They said that “Now we
need to find an analysis that works….. Need to fit argument in as defensible a
fashion as we can”. They did not have facts to delist the bald eagle, but someone
just played with the numbers.
We need to look no further than the press release that F&W puts out to the public
every year stating that a record number of young are raised that year. No one looks
at the nests so no one really knows. Every time a new nest is found they just add it
to their record of bald eagle nests. They never remove a nest when it falls from the
tree or the tree falls down. They never look at all the nests to see if they are actually
being used. They never check to see if all of the nests even had young, let alone
fledge any young. To this bogus increased number of nests, they apply the
percentage of young per nest that they had back in the year 2000, when the
percentage of young recorded on our count peaked, and then extrapolate how
many young are being raised.
This year when Illinois was considering delisting the bald eagle, they started their
statements with the “fact” that Illinois now has over 100 bald eagle nests. When
asked where did they got that number they stated they were using the extrapolation
that had been prepared by the F&W Service. The F&W stated that the last time
anyone looked some years ago there were 36 nests so there must be 100 by now.
While participating in the 2009 Midwinter Eagle Count along the Mississippi and
Illinois Rivers my wife and I saw only one new nest and only two of 14 historic
nests that had any adults nearby. Most of the nests were either no longer present
or were in definite disrepair reflecting the fact that no adults were caring for them. If
the bald eagles are going to be laying eggs in these nests during February, the
adults should be present and have the nests repaired by the latter part of January.
We need to look back at the definitions which our national researchers developed
40 years ago to monitor the success of bald eagle nests. If we are to monitor the
bald eagle population properly we must go back to using that terminology again.
We cannot take statements that are given to us by the Fish & Wildlife Service, or
anyone else, who is not actually looking at the nests. Estimates and extrapolations
are not what should be used to delist any species. That decision to delist is
supposed to be based on sound scientific facts.
To be accurate we should not be calling a nest successful until it has actually
fledged the young. For years the F&W considered young eagles as having been
fledged if they were in the nest at 6 weeks of age. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Many of the young seen at this age may starve before they can fly. Any
parents who have raised children know that a 17 year old eats a lot more food than
a 7 year old. If bald eagle parents cannot find this increased amount of food that is
needed then the largest young may eat the smallest young, as has been
witnessed on some of our nations’s TV cams. And then if the parents cannot find
enough food for the remaining young it will die also.
Presently there is something bothering their reproduction. I don’t know what,
whether it could be West Nile Virus, some new chemical, (such as what is creating
havoc with CCD in honeybees, which I believe is the herbicide Round-Up), or
starvation, but we have to determine what it is and much sooner, rather than later.
The total number of bald eagles that are being seen in our wintering bald eagle
counts is not the important factor, for no matter how hard we try we cannot see or
record all of them. What is important is the percentages of young compared to
adults! That reflects the success of reproduction and the survival of the young.
The bald eagle did come back from its low in the early 1960’s. I know, for I was
doing research on the bald eagle in Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin at
that time, while I was teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville. I was part
of the team that was conducting this Midwinter Annual Count then, so I know what
the bald eagle population was doing and what we were seeing. After my almost 50
years of research I feel that I have a better feeling for and understand the bald
eagle better than anyone in the Midwest, or possibly, even in the nation. This count
is conducted on a day when the migration is at a minimum and basically during a
two hour period to eliminate duplication caused by the bald eagles moving around
at 40 to 80 miles per hour. A winter feeding territory for eagles is at least 16 miles
in diameter or over 200 square miles.
I am including a copy of the results of the last 48 years of our Annual Midwinter
Bald Eagle Count for your information. As you can see in this table the percentage
of young peaked in the year 2000 and has been gradually moving lower each year.
Immature bald eagles have entirely disappeared from some of our wintering
communities. Once this occurs, the remaining adults gradually decrease in
number, and it is only a matter of years before that community of bald eagles is
history, as has already happened. Only if a community can raise young is there
hope for that community. Some bald eagle wintering communities are already
down to one or two birds and whether or not they can raise young is unknown.
The community of bald eagles that winters on the Wisconsin River used to have 80-
90 birds and have between 30 to 45% immatures. Last year the total number was
down to 28 birds, but the percentage of young having been down for years was up
to over 57%. This year the bottom dropped out and there were about the same
number of adults in the area, but there was only one 4-yr old with no other
immatures sited. Army Corps personnel at Dams #6, #7 and #9 on the
Mississippi River saw no bald eagles at all on our count day. I have studied the
bald eagle at Bellevue, IA for close to 50 years and on Jan. 23, 2009, I saw only one
adult near this town, the lowest number I had ever seen there. In total we found far
too many 4-year old birds compared to immatures during our count this year. A
normal population should have 1 out of 8 immatures being a 4 yr old.
In the early 1970’s our nation’s researchers determined that a healthy wintering
bald eagle population had a 30-33% immature to adult ratio. This is about the ratio
that our Midwinter Count was recording during the 80’s and 90’s, when the bald
eagle population was increasing. The ratio is now back to where it was during the
early 1960’s, when the bald eagle population was at its low point. The makeup of
the our present bald eagle population is gradually starting to reflect this lower
reproduction of young being seen. We used to see close to 50% immatures along
the Mississippi River south of the Quad Cities, especially from Keokuk to St. Louis.
This would bring up the lower percentage that was north of Illinois to a respectable
average. Now those areas near St. Louis are reporting less than 20%, and the
areas north of Illinois, if they have any eagles at all, are reporting much less than
10%. Some of our counters in those areas are seeing no immatures at all.
The wintering bald eagles along the Mississippi River in Northern Illinois and
Southern Wisconsin are not finding fish in the river and are moving inland looking
for a vital meal. During the winter if they don’t find the food necessary to put on, or
at least keep their body fat, they will be unsuccessful in raising young after they
migrate North in the Spring. This past year we had reports of bald eagles starving
in the summer!
The bald eagle is our National Symbol and we must be very careful about caring for
its future, because it is our environmental canary in the cage and when it has gone,
the hope for mankind will not be far behind!
We cannot use the counts done by F&W over a 10 day or 2 week period to even
start to give us an idea of the total numbers of bald eagles, as these birds are so
mobile. They can be counted over and over again as they move around 40 to 80
miles per hour looking for food. Wherever they can find food, is where a large
number of bald eagles will be seen, such at Starved Rock last weekend. They had
a large number when many other places had few birds. Our Annual Count is
conducted during one day and basically during a two hour period.
We cannot use the Christmas counts conducted by National Audubon Society as a
indication of the population as these counts are each done with multiple teams
within a 15 mile circle. A wintering community of bald eagles will have a feeding
territory of as large as 8 miles from the nighttime roost which is larger than a NAS
count circle. Flying 40 to 80 miles per hour these birds could be counted by
several count teams as they fly around within this feeding territory trying to find
something to eat. They could be counted in a couple of counts that are close
together and conducted on the same day if they overlap the bald eagle’s wintering
community. Or the birds could be counted on several counts on different days as
the Christmas count period is during the time the bald eagles are migrating South
and the same birds may be sighted by different people over and over again.
That could be our present scenario, but we do not have any data to prove it one way
or the other. That is why we need to continue monitoring nests and conducting our
annual midwinter bald eagle counts.
By Terrence N. Ingram
The Eagle Nature Foundation has just compiled the results of its 2009 Annual
Midwinter Bald Eagle Count and the results show that the bald eagle population, at
least in the Midwest, is experiencing a very severe problem that must be
addressed as soon as possible. The overall percentage of immatures has
continued its downward trend. this time 2.4% to bring the level down to 21.2%.
Only once in the past 40 years of conducting these counts has the level been lower
and that was just two years ago, when it had reached 19.7 %.
For the previous ten years of these counts just before the bald eagle was even
placed on the Endangered Species List this percentage of immatures was higher
than it is this year. During that period the percentage of immatures was over 30%
for four different years and between was between 25% and 30% for four years. In
the year 2000 this percentage peaked at 38.9 % and basically has been on a
decline ever since.
Because this downward trend, which we have been recording for nine years, is not
reversing itself the Fish and Wildlife Service should seriously consider placing the
bald eagle back on the Endangered Species List. If the F&W does not do it
voluntarily, we as citizens need to force them to do what is right and take this
action. The bald eagle is not just another species. It is our National Symbol and
we all have an obligation to be watching its population changes very carefully.
The bald eagle should never have been removed from the Endangered Species
List in 2007. For any species to be removed from the List only sound scientific
facts should be used. These facts should be much more comprehensive and
accurate, than those which were used to place that species on the List. That is
because so much more research should have been done to learn what was
needed to recover the species. This is not true with the bald eagle. Delist “facts”
which were used were fabricated by someone sitting behind a desk.
We know this as a fact because the bald eagle was to be delisted all across the
nation in 2007. Our nation’s Southwestern Bald Eagle Population was not delisted
as F&W had planned to do, but only after being prevented from doing so by a
lawsuit. It was proven in court that someone high up in F&W said that delisting the
bald eagle was a policy call and their employees need to support it. Anyone can
read the decision of the judge in this lawsuit to see how F&W employees stated
that they “had marching orders to support it (policy call).” They said that “Now we
need to find an analysis that works….. Need to fit argument in as defensible a
fashion as we can”. They did not have facts to delist the bald eagle, but someone
just played with the numbers.
We need to look no further than the press release that F&W puts out to the public
every year stating that a record number of young are raised that year. No one looks
at the nests so no one really knows. Every time a new nest is found they just add it
to their record of bald eagle nests. They never remove a nest when it falls from the
tree or the tree falls down. They never look at all the nests to see if they are actually
being used. They never check to see if all of the nests even had young, let alone
fledge any young. To this bogus increased number of nests, they apply the
percentage of young per nest that they had back in the year 2000, when the
percentage of young recorded on our count peaked, and then extrapolate how
many young are being raised.
This year when Illinois was considering delisting the bald eagle, they started their
statements with the “fact” that Illinois now has over 100 bald eagle nests. When
asked where did they got that number they stated they were using the extrapolation
that had been prepared by the F&W Service. The F&W stated that the last time
anyone looked some years ago there were 36 nests so there must be 100 by now.
While participating in the 2009 Midwinter Eagle Count along the Mississippi and
Illinois Rivers my wife and I saw only one new nest and only two of 14 historic
nests that had any adults nearby. Most of the nests were either no longer present
or were in definite disrepair reflecting the fact that no adults were caring for them. If
the bald eagles are going to be laying eggs in these nests during February, the
adults should be present and have the nests repaired by the latter part of January.
We need to look back at the definitions which our national researchers developed
40 years ago to monitor the success of bald eagle nests. If we are to monitor the
bald eagle population properly we must go back to using that terminology again.
We cannot take statements that are given to us by the Fish & Wildlife Service, or
anyone else, who is not actually looking at the nests. Estimates and extrapolations
are not what should be used to delist any species. That decision to delist is
supposed to be based on sound scientific facts.
To be accurate we should not be calling a nest successful until it has actually
fledged the young. For years the F&W considered young eagles as having been
fledged if they were in the nest at 6 weeks of age. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Many of the young seen at this age may starve before they can fly. Any
parents who have raised children know that a 17 year old eats a lot more food than
a 7 year old. If bald eagle parents cannot find this increased amount of food that is
needed then the largest young may eat the smallest young, as has been
witnessed on some of our nations’s TV cams. And then if the parents cannot find
enough food for the remaining young it will die also.
Presently there is something bothering their reproduction. I don’t know what,
whether it could be West Nile Virus, some new chemical, (such as what is creating
havoc with CCD in honeybees, which I believe is the herbicide Round-Up), or
starvation, but we have to determine what it is and much sooner, rather than later.
The total number of bald eagles that are being seen in our wintering bald eagle
counts is not the important factor, for no matter how hard we try we cannot see or
record all of them. What is important is the percentages of young compared to
adults! That reflects the success of reproduction and the survival of the young.
The bald eagle did come back from its low in the early 1960’s. I know, for I was
doing research on the bald eagle in Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin at
that time, while I was teaching at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville. I was part
of the team that was conducting this Midwinter Annual Count then, so I know what
the bald eagle population was doing and what we were seeing. After my almost 50
years of research I feel that I have a better feeling for and understand the bald
eagle better than anyone in the Midwest, or possibly, even in the nation. This count
is conducted on a day when the migration is at a minimum and basically during a
two hour period to eliminate duplication caused by the bald eagles moving around
at 40 to 80 miles per hour. A winter feeding territory for eagles is at least 16 miles
in diameter or over 200 square miles.
I am including a copy of the results of the last 48 years of our Annual Midwinter
Bald Eagle Count for your information. As you can see in this table the percentage
of young peaked in the year 2000 and has been gradually moving lower each year.
Immature bald eagles have entirely disappeared from some of our wintering
communities. Once this occurs, the remaining adults gradually decrease in
number, and it is only a matter of years before that community of bald eagles is
history, as has already happened. Only if a community can raise young is there
hope for that community. Some bald eagle wintering communities are already
down to one or two birds and whether or not they can raise young is unknown.
The community of bald eagles that winters on the Wisconsin River used to have 80-
90 birds and have between 30 to 45% immatures. Last year the total number was
down to 28 birds, but the percentage of young having been down for years was up
to over 57%. This year the bottom dropped out and there were about the same
number of adults in the area, but there was only one 4-yr old with no other
immatures sited. Army Corps personnel at Dams #6, #7 and #9 on the
Mississippi River saw no bald eagles at all on our count day. I have studied the
bald eagle at Bellevue, IA for close to 50 years and on Jan. 23, 2009, I saw only one
adult near this town, the lowest number I had ever seen there. In total we found far
too many 4-year old birds compared to immatures during our count this year. A
normal population should have 1 out of 8 immatures being a 4 yr old.
In the early 1970’s our nation’s researchers determined that a healthy wintering
bald eagle population had a 30-33% immature to adult ratio. This is about the ratio
that our Midwinter Count was recording during the 80’s and 90’s, when the bald
eagle population was increasing. The ratio is now back to where it was during the
early 1960’s, when the bald eagle population was at its low point. The makeup of
the our present bald eagle population is gradually starting to reflect this lower
reproduction of young being seen. We used to see close to 50% immatures along
the Mississippi River south of the Quad Cities, especially from Keokuk to St. Louis.
This would bring up the lower percentage that was north of Illinois to a respectable
average. Now those areas near St. Louis are reporting less than 20%, and the
areas north of Illinois, if they have any eagles at all, are reporting much less than
10%. Some of our counters in those areas are seeing no immatures at all.
The wintering bald eagles along the Mississippi River in Northern Illinois and
Southern Wisconsin are not finding fish in the river and are moving inland looking
for a vital meal. During the winter if they don’t find the food necessary to put on, or
at least keep their body fat, they will be unsuccessful in raising young after they
migrate North in the Spring. This past year we had reports of bald eagles starving
in the summer!
The bald eagle is our National Symbol and we must be very careful about caring for
its future, because it is our environmental canary in the cage and when it has gone,
the hope for mankind will not be far behind!
We cannot use the counts done by F&W over a 10 day or 2 week period to even
start to give us an idea of the total numbers of bald eagles, as these birds are so
mobile. They can be counted over and over again as they move around 40 to 80
miles per hour looking for food. Wherever they can find food, is where a large
number of bald eagles will be seen, such at Starved Rock last weekend. They had
a large number when many other places had few birds. Our Annual Count is
conducted during one day and basically during a two hour period.
We cannot use the Christmas counts conducted by National Audubon Society as a
indication of the population as these counts are each done with multiple teams
within a 15 mile circle. A wintering community of bald eagles will have a feeding
territory of as large as 8 miles from the nighttime roost which is larger than a NAS
count circle. Flying 40 to 80 miles per hour these birds could be counted by
several count teams as they fly around within this feeding territory trying to find
something to eat. They could be counted in a couple of counts that are close
together and conducted on the same day if they overlap the bald eagle’s wintering
community. Or the birds could be counted on several counts on different days as
the Christmas count period is during the time the bald eagles are migrating South
and the same birds may be sighted by different people over and over again.
That could be our present scenario, but we do not have any data to prove it one way
or the other. That is why we need to continue monitoring nests and conducting our
annual midwinter bald eagle counts.
| All rights reserved. Eagle Nature Foundation, Ltd. 300 East Hickory Street Apple River, IL 61001 Phone: 815-594-2306 |
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Bald Eagle back on the
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Read the Current Issue of
July 2010 Nature News or
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News. To save trees and
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Keep up with ENF
announcements by visiting
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USFWS to put the American
Bald Eagle back on the
Endangered Species List:
Protect the Eagle Now
Follow us on Twitter and
Facebook!
Read the Current Issue of
July 2010 Nature News or
the Apr-Jun 2010 Bald Eagle
News. To save trees and
receive your publications
electronically, fill out our
Publications form.
Keep up with ENF
announcements by visiting
our Press Release page.