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Community Corner

Surge in Local Eagle Population

The Bedford Audubon Society found a 45 percent rise in the eagle population in northern Westchester

Bedford's January sky may be vast, windy, and cold, but that's smooth sailing if you're a bald eagle.

The Bedford Audubon Society, or BAS, counted 45 percent more bald eagles in 2009 than in 2008 during its yearly Winter Eagle Monitoring Project at roosting sites at the Croton River Reservoir and the Hudson River.

BAS volunteers have been conducting eagle surveys for the last three years, and this year counted 74 eagles compared with last year's 51.  The winged beasts are here roosting for the winter after the warm breeding months. They choose areas near large bodies of water with plenty of fish, a primary food source. 

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Tait Johansson, a Naturalist at the BAS, prepared the Winter Eagle Monitoring Project's 2008 and 2009 reports. He said the increase in Westchester County eagles is representative of a nationwide comeback that started with the banning of the pesticide DDT in 1972 and has been slow and steady ever since. The history of the majestic bird has been a long and uncertain flight.

Bill Streeter is a Zoologist at the Delaware Valley Raptor Center in Milford, Pennsylvania. He says bald eagle numbers hit at all time-low in the lower 48 States in the 1960s, with about 400 living breeding pairs. The BAS says in 1965, there was only one breeding pair in all of New York State.

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"Some lakes and streams were completely dead, without hardly any life at all," Streeter said.

Without living fish in the water, eagles lost their primary food source. Things have been better since the use of DDT stopped, and now there over 12,000 breeding pairs in the lower 48 states. Today's chemical threats to eagles include mercury, PCBs, and lead.

Scott Rando is a volunteer with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. He worked in the field with Bill Streeter, nursing lead-poisoned eagles back to health and releasing them back into the wild. Rando says that lead shot from hunters is notorious for harming eagles. Waterfowl eat the lead after it settles at the bottom of waterways and get sick, becoming easy targets for any eagle cruising for a meal. To make matters worse, Mercury and PCBs can get in the water from waste like batteries or old transformers being disposed of improperly.

"The list goes on…it is hoped that through awareness, technology, and education, the situation will improve in the future," Rando said.

Tait Johansson says that the environmental ill effects of new chemicals aren't usually known until damage has already been done.

"Whenever they synthesize a new chemical, you never really know what it's going to do in the environment," he said.


So what lies in store for local eagles in 2010 and beyond? Bill Streeter says that overall, the prognosis is extremely good.

"The numbers have grown almost exponentially in the last 10 years…There are so many more breeding pairs now than there were 2 years ago," he said. "As long as the habitat remains good, we should see more bald eagles."

Tait Johansson agrees.

"Eagles are pretty well protected now, and I think people are pretty educated and appreciate them a lot more," he said.

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