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| Bald eagles are returning to Rhode Island in growing numbers. (Heidi Piccerelli/for Audubon Society of R.I.) |
The past year has been a record year for an American icon in the
Ocean State.
According to the Audubon Society of Rhode Island, bald eagles have
been spotted soaring above the Seekonk River in Providence and perched in trees
along the Blackstone River Bikeway in Cumberland.
From the shoreline in Newport, to Coventry and locations across
South County, there have been numerous eagle sightings reported throughout the
state, according to the nonprofit.
Until quite recently, these large raptors
teetered on the brink of extinction. They hadn’t been seen in Rhode Island
until the past decade.
Long road back
“Here’s a bird with an immense distribution across the country
when we virtually extirpated it,” said ornithologist and Audubon board member
Charles Clarkson. “We’re just now starting to pull ourselves back from that
situation.”
He said it’s a misconception that bald and golden eagles declined
mostly from the use of the pesticide DDT. “While it played a rather important
role, there’s much more to it than that,” he said.
Clarkson said there were about 100,000 eagles across America in
the 1700s. That number went into decline soon after, because of habitat
degradation and a developing salmon fishing industry. The great forests that
dominated the American landscape vanished as the young country grew.
“Habitat loss has been a precursor to every species decline on
earth,” Clarkson said. “Loss of resources and actual aggressive degradation of
food sources, through DDT and lead poisoning from eagles feeding on carcasses
of animals that contained lead from bird shot, did further damage. The insults
came from multiple directions.”
Some of the mainstays of the eagle diet, such as shore birds and
ducks, began to dwindle because of overhunting. Then there was also another
factor that, by today’s standards, seems unthinkable: hunting.
“We had allowed farmers and fishermen to hunt these animals,”
Clarkson said.
According to U.S. Fish & Wildlife, the eagle population
dropped to an all-time low of 417 nesting pairs in 1963, even after several
laws were enacted to protect the eagle, such as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act
of 1936.
The use of DDT remained common until 1972, when the federal
government banned it. In 1973, arguably the single most important element in
eagle recovery became a law: the Endangered Species Act. Not only did the act
protect raptors against hunting, it also reduced the threats to eagle habitat,
including nesting sites and summer and winter roost sites.
Habitat protection, eagle restoration and monitoring combined to
bring bald and golden eagles to the point where the population, now climbing to
an estimated 9,789 breeding pairs, was delisted in 2007.
Choosing a nesting site
Eagle nests may be up to 10 feet across and, according to Fish
& Wildlife, weigh up to 4,000 pounds. The birds, which mate for life, tend
to return to the same sight year after year. The life expectancy of an eagle in
the wild is roughly 30 years.
“Juvenile sightings are a good thing year-round,” Clarkson said.
“They have no mate; they’re just exploring the territory. It’s good that these
birds are exploring for long distances. That helps in maintaining genetic
diversity.”
Eagles prefer freshwater nesting sites, and are more prey specific
during mating season, but they become generalists in the off-season, according
to Clarkson.
It’s difficult to tell where the juveniles in Rhode Island
originated from, Clarkson said. Maine has the largest nesting population of
bald eagles in New England, but Virginia also has a large population, and
eagles are more than capable of covering either distance to get to the Ocean
State.
“Having these birds breed in state would be a real bonus in terms
of the condition of the habitat,” Clarkson said. “It would mean that we’ve
conserved the habitat well. They tend to shy away from fragmented
habitat. They may approach (potential nesting) areas from three to four
thousand feet and then they assess the nesting conditions from up there.”
There was a nesting site in Scituate from roughly 2003 to 2007,
and there are three, possibly four current sites in the state, he said, but it
remains to be seen how many eagles will choose to remain in Rhode Island.
EDITOR’S
NOTE: I hope that you are among the lucky ones who have spotted our local eagle
population here in Charlestown. I feel fortunate to have had several sightings. WC
