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Record Number of Bald Eagles Preparing to BreedBy Amber Lester Kennedy Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Researchers with the Center for Conservation Biology conduct flights to observe bald eagles.
A record number of breeding pairs of the birds has been spotted this year, and is likely to increase. Last year, 154 breeding pairs were spotted on the James; already, 165 breeding pairs have been spotted this year, according to Bryan Watts, director of the Center for Conservation Biology. The center conducts an annual series of low-altitude flights in a small plane to spot nests of the birds. The center has documented the bald eagle’s return to the James River, the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries since the 1970s. The James is the only major tributary within the Bay watershed in which the bald eagle completely disappeared, due to high levels of kepone, DDT and other pollutants. Watts said the population recovery in just 30 years is a testament to the bird’s resiliency. Watts and crew will continue to fly up the Chesapeake to count the populations. Later in the spring, they’ll start a second round of flights to check known nest locations for chicks; these flights typically reveal previously undocumented nests. Bald eagles like to nest in tall trees close to the water; some of their nests can be the size of a Volkswagen Beetle and weigh a couple of tons. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we top 170 pairs on the James this year,” Watt said, “but that will have to wait until the next round.” The 2011 survey marks the 50th consecutive season that the bald eagle population has been observed by air, making the survey the longest-running eagle census in the United States. It’s also the 35th consecutive year that William and Mary Professor Emeritus of Biology Mitchell Byrd has surveyed the population and is Watts’ 20th year on the job. The Center for Conservation Biology is a joint program of the College of William and Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University. During the 2010 breeding season, CCB scientists surveyed more than 900 nests throughout the lower Chesapeake, and documented more than 680 breeding pairs that produced more than 880 chicks. |
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Comments
This is a political issue. But it's a really good one. It's a political success story.
Decades ago, in the 1970s, it took lots of hard political work to pass the legislation that banned the toxins and poisons that were destroying the eagles. And there were many who vehemently tried to destroy the laws that we now see were good, and have led to the eagles' resurgence. These short-sighted anti-nature goons were largely Republican, siding with chemical companies and industrial agriculture rather than do what was right and moral.
Luckily they lost and now the eagles' successful comeback is the result.
Let's not make the same mistake and let the destructive Republicans destroy the entire Chesapeake environment. Oh, they are certainly trying.
How sad it would be to see the Bald Eagle make a comeback, only to have its Chesapeake environment spoiled and ruined by the same unholy alliance between Republican policymakers and their minions.
This news is solid and beautiful proof that progressive environmental policy works. This is now seen to be absolutely true despite what the Republican anti-environmen t-anti-American politicians espouse, in order to protect their selfish money-grubbing special interests.
Now lets turn our efforts towards restoring the mighty Chesapeake Bay itself.