Un-dangered: the bald eagle

Published in The Post-Star (A1)
7/10/06

At a time when the country's feathers are frequently ruffled by military and diplomatic challenges to its global dominance, one classic American symbol is stronger than it has been in a long time: the bald eagle.

Declaring the last few decades of recovery efforts a success, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is poised to release the bald eagle from the federal list of endangered species.

Last century, the species had a close call with extinction in the country that has considered it a national symbol since 1782. Biologists believe there were once more than 100,000 bald eagles in America, but that population plummeted as humans hunted them, devoured their natural habitat with development, and released deadly pesticides like DDT into the environment.

By the early 1960s, there were only 417 breeding pairs of bald eagles left in the lower 48 states, prompting Congress to pass the Bald and Gold Eagle Protection Act and declare the bird an endangered species.

Recently, that number has soared past 7,000 breeding pairs -- even higher than biologists hoped when they began a regional recovery program in the mid-1970s.

As a leader of the endangered species program for the state Department of Environmental Conservation since 1976, Peter Nye has handled thousands of eagles. He spent the early years of the bald eagle recovery program climbing trees in Alaska to capture baby eaglets and bring them back to the northern U.S., where they were gradually released into the wild.

With the help of a helicopter, Nye now keeps a close eye on each of the 110 breeding pairs of bald eagles in New York state.

The federal recovery program split the lower 48 states into five recovery regions, each with a numeric goal for re-establishing bald eagles. In the 16-state northern region, which includes New York, the goal was 1,200 nesting pairs.

"At the time, everybody thought those numbers were really pie in the sky," Nye said. "Then, lo and behold, eagles started to come ... we blew by the numeric goals. Now, there's probably like 2,000 pairs in the northern states."

The Fish and Wildlife Service downgraded the bird's risk status from "endangered" to "threatened" in 1995, and in 1999 proposed removing it from the list completely. Now, after a lengthy review process and public comment period, it appears that proposal will soon be implemented. The species will still be protected from hunting and other forms of disturbance under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Nye said delisting makes sense based on numbers alone, but the eagles' future could still be clouded if the government fails to set strict habitat management guidelines.

"I think where everyone was a little shortsighted was simply saying, if we ever get these numbers again, we're golden," Nye said. "But what's it going to be in 2040? Is the habitat base that created those numbers going to be there?"

Bald eagles only breed once a year, and they are sensitive creatures, said Nye. If nearby human activity disturbs them too much, they may abandon the nest -- and their eggs.

"We saw one active nest this year, on the lower Hudson, and when we went back in May we found it abandoned, with eggs," Nye said. "We noticed an ATV trail about 25 feet away, and said, 'Oh.'...That's that. I guess they just go and mope somewhere."

The habitat management guidelines currently proposed by the Fish and Wildlife Service are "probably okay," but they're only voluntary, Nye said. He and other raptor biologists are recommending the adoption of a mandatory habitat management plan "with some teeth behind it" to protect bald eagles' nesting sites from development in the future.

"Without that, seeing the way things have gone in the Hudson Valley and throughout the state, we're just chopping up the habitat as if there's no tomorrow," he said. "Basically, the species has had a remarkable recovery, and they warrant delisting, but it's kind of irresponsible to delist them and just walk away."

LOGGING ON: To learn more, visit www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/BaldEagle.