From River Towns to Eagle Towns

  • This year, the Dubuque, Iowa Eagle Watch organizers invited the World Bird Sanctuary of St. Louis to bring a captive bald eagle so families could get as close a look as possible without feeling the winter chill. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

The American bald eagle is the Endangered Species Act’s poster child, it’s Come-back
kid. This time of year, a lot of towns organize eagle watches to celebrate the success
story and to attract tourists. Reporter Shawn Allee couldn’t resist visiting one:

Transcript

The American bald eagle is the Endangered Species Act’s poster child, it’s Come-back
kid. This time of year, a lot of towns organize eagle watches to celebrate the success
story and to attract tourists. Reporter Shawn Allee couldn’t resist visiting one:

I wasn’t exactly sure where to spot eagles in Dubuque, Iowa, so for the annual Eagle Watch, I
started indoors – at the city’s convention center.

There were plenty of eagle-related knick-knacks for sale – like eagle bobble-heads, plush toys,
and photos.

But locals there told me where to find eagles, and why the Eagle Watch means so much.

“Twenty years ago, we read about eagles, we heard about eagles but we never ever saw
one.”

That’s Dubuque photographer, Robert Eichman.

Eichman: “I’ve been taking pictures for 65 years. I probably never got a picture of an eagle
until about 7 or 8 years ago, so I have witnessed their comeback.”

Allee: “So, now this is one of their hotspots.”

Eichman: “Right. This time of year, there may be four- to five-hundred eagles roosting on
the bluffs on either side of the river.”

Eichman said the best place to see them is on the Mississippi River. There’s a dam that stops the
river – and a lock that let’s boats through. He suggested I try the Eagle Watch trolley.

Allee: “Hi there. Are you going to the lock?”

Driver: “Yeah.”

Allee: “Great.”

Dubuque’s had an Eagle Watch event for twenty one years, but dozens of towns in the
upper Midwest sponsor them in January and February.

Eagles were declared endangered in the early seventies because a pesticide was killing their
young. They’re now off the federal endangered and threatened list.

Seeing an eagle is still novel enough that there’s a small tourist industry built around their winter
hunting grounds.

Driver: “Right up here to the left folks, there are four, five, six right in a row.”

Allee: “There they are. It’s amazing. I’ll get out here.”

I’d seen a few eagles before but never this many at once; they were in trees and swooping over
the river. I headed to a lookout run by the army corps of engineers.

Park ranger Bret Streckwald was there to answer questions.

Allee: “Why is it this is such a good location to see bald eagles in the winter time?”

Streckwald: “Well, it’s the lock and dam, and they’re primary food is fish.”

Allee: “So, on our left, it’s solid ice on the Mississippi River, then what do we see on the
right?”

Streckwald: “Open water. The dam keeps the water open and the fish go through the dam
and they’re stunned a little bit, and it makes it pretty easy for the eagles to feed on them.”

Allee: “Hardly seems fair, but it keeps the eagles pretty healthy.”

Streckwald: “Yeah, they’re all pretty well-fed.”

Allee: “So what do you have set up here?”

Streckwald: “We have some spotting scopes set up on the various eagles that are stationary
and obviously we have the birds that are flying. We have a lot of people that like to take
pictures.”

Allee: “I don’t know how good this shot is going to be with my very amateurish camera,
but…”

Boy: “Dad – I saw one in the telescope. I saw one in the telescope flying! Whoa … ahuh.”

Allee: “I think this boy had the right idea, I’m now looking through one of these telescopes
the army corps of engineers set up for us. And I can see this eagle perfectly. The ice is
bobbing up and down, and he’s going with it. He’s staring out on the water, steely-eyed. It’s
a nice image.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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The Costs of Eagle Poaching

  • The Bald Eagle and the Golden Eagle are both protected by federal law. (Photo by Jeremy Henderson)

The eagle has long been treasured as a national symbol, but the bird is also prized by poachers. Pow-wow dancers, new age shamans, and European trophy collectors are paying top dollar on the black market for eagle parts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports:

Transcript

Eagles have long been treasured as a national symbol, but the bird is also prized by poachers. Pow-wow dancers, New Age shamans, and European trophy collectors are paying top dollar on the black market for eagle parts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports:


Eagle heads, feet, wings, and feathers are prized for costumes, artwork, and ceremonies. Some collectors are paying roughly a thousand dollars for a golden or bald eagle carcass.


Mary Jane Lavin is a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She says the birds are protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Violators can land up to a year in jail and
pay a $100,000 penalty.


Lavin says a better way to get eagle parts is through a federal repository program. The program sends out carcasses and parts from eagles that have died in the wilderness or in zoos.


“The demand is greater than the supply, and there is a waiting list but we’re doing our best to make sure that we can provide those things, that were acquired and died naturally so that
people don’t have to feel that they need to go out and shoot eagles.”


Special permits for possessing and gathering feathers can also be given to those with government-issued Certificates of Indian Birth.


For the GLRC, I’m Brian Bull.

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Eagle Soaring Off Endangered Species List

  • Researcher climbing up to the eagles’ nest. A pair of eaglets are nesting there. (Photo by Bob Kelleher)

The American Bald Eagle is expected to come off the endangered species list soon. Once a victim of hunting and pollution, the eagles are rebounding, but scientists say monitoring must continue, for the sake of the eagles and the sake of the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bob Kelleher reports:

Transcript

The American Bald Eagle is expected to come off the endangered species
list soon. Once a victim of hunting and pollution, the eagles are
rebounding, but scientists say monitoring must continue, for the sake
of the eagles and the sake of the environment. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Bob Kelleher reports:


If you’re looking at all, it’s hard to miss the bald eagles here. The
majestic birds glide overhead, or silently perch on a waterfront tree.
Their nests – made of branches – fill the treetops – sometimes ten feet
across, close to the lakes of Northern Minnesota’s Voyageurs National
Park.


Twenty years ago you might have been hard pressed to spot America’s
national symbol. Park Biologist Lee Grim says, it was obvious that
eagles were struggling.


“We saw how some of these birds were ill, and sick, and they had avian
pox and things. Something was keeping them from being healthy.”


An eagle found here in 1989 had the highest blood concentration ever
found of contaminants like the chemical PCB.


“So, we wanted to know why is that up here in Northern Minnesota, in
the middle of a beautiful, you know, almost wilderness area.”


It’s still a mystery how industrial chemicals like PCB’s get here, but
we do know what’s hurt the bald eagles in the past. The insecticide
DDT made bird eggs fragile – more likely to break under an eagles
weight than hatch. And Grim says DDT was all over the place. It was
sprayed on the region’s forests to kill insects like the spruce
budworm.


“DDT is pretty much everywhere, it has been, you know. And it’s a
pretty long lived chemical.”


At the top of the food chain, chemicals like DDT accumulate in the
eagle’s bodies. Sick eagles can indicate a poisoned environment. To
test the environment, you test the eagles.


(snd of climbing)


A naturalist is scaling 90-feet up one of the park’s White Pine trees
to the huge nest at the top. The parent eagles circle overhead –
noisily upset. There’s a pair of hatchlings – fuzzy, beaky, and
surprisingly big 8-week old bald eagles. They have bright yellow feet,
with shiny black, and what will become very dangerous talons. Soon,
one’s squirming in an orange bag, and lowered into the hands of
graduate students Faith Wiley and Katie Parmentier.


(snd of students talking about baby eagle)


In minutes, the young female is back up; short a few feathers for
mercury testing; and a little blood for other chemical tests. There’s
a pair of metal bands riveted around her ankles.


Bill Bowerman is an environmental toxicologist from Clemson University.
His testing proves that chemicals like DDT and PCB’s are slowly going
away, but chemicals were only part of the problems for bald eagles.
Man was another problem. It took decades to get people to stop
shooting eagles; or to catch them accidentally in beaver traps, but
it’s better now.


“It’s evident, when I go out to landowners that have eagle nests on
their property, that they know how to manage their eagles; how to keep
people away; and how to protect that eagle during that critical nesting
period.”


It’s believed there were once half a million bald eagles in North
America. As people spread, by the 1950’s, bald eagles nearly vanished.
In the lower 48 states, the last few hung on in places like the Great
Lakes.


In Voyageurs Park, bald eagle numbers have jumped from seven nesting
pairs in 1973, to 28 pairs today. There are more than 7-thousand
breeding pairs nation wide, but there are always new threats. One of
the nation’s first victim’s to West Nile disease was the bald eagle in
New York area zoos. Bowerman says several pair are missing now in
Michigan, and there are always new chemicals. Traces of poly
brominated flame retardants are doubling in the Great Lakes basin every
3 to 5 years. Bowerman says the chemical industry needs strict
monitoring.


“As long as we maintain our vigilance about the environmental toxicants
that are being created each year, we should be having the eagles
protected.”


Bowerman supports de-listing, but doesn’t want the birds in the
predicament they were twenty years ago. An official announcement of
the bald eagle’s de-listing is expected later this year.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bob Kelleher.

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