Nebraska's Bald Eagles

Researchers estimate there were once 250,000 to 500,000 bald eagles in North America. Their decline began soon after Europeans arrived. Like the wolf, mountain lion and other native predators, eagles were shot and trapped by settlers who saw them as a threat to livestock and a competitor for fish and game. Alaska paid a bounty on more than 128,000 eagles between 1917 and 1952, and shooting for feathers and trophies was widespread.

Declines in buffalo, seasonally important as carrion, and waterfowl affected eagles, as did forest clearing and urban expansion, which destroyed important nesting, perching and roosting sites. Poison-laced carrion used to control wolves and coyotes also attracted and killed eagles.

Early protection for the species was piecemeal and ineffective. The Lacey Act of 1900 prohibited the interstate trade of birds and feathers, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 prohibited the possession, transportation and take of migratory birds and their parts, including eggs, nests and feathers. Both afforded some protection to bald eagles, but their decline continued. An estimated 3,000 to 8,000 pairs of eagles nested in the Chesapeake Bay region prior to European settlement. By the 1930s, just 600 pairs remained.

In 1940, Congress passed the Bald Eagle Protection Act, prohibiting the sale of eagles and expanding the definition of take to include shoot, shoot at, poison, wound, kill, capture, trap, collect, molest, or disturb. The act and increased public awareness of the eagles' plight slowed the decline and may have even led to a partial recovery. But more trouble lay ahead.

Following World War II, DDT and other organochlorine pesticides began to be widely used to control insects in crops and mosquitoes in coastal and inland wetlands. The effects were immediate, killing eagles, fish and other wildlife exposed to the aerial spraying. Overland runoff carried the chemicals into rivers and lakes, where they eventually worked their way up the food chain to eagles. As levels of DDE, a metabolite of DDT that persists in the environment, rose in eagles and other raptors, it inhibited the release of calcium for egg formation. This led to a reduction in eggshell thickness, causing eggs to break under the weight of incubating adults. Other eggs were infertile.

Nesting success plummeted. Along a 100-mile stretch of Florida coastline, 73 nests produced 100 young in 1947. Ten years later, just 8 young were fledged from the 43 nests that remained.

Eagle populations continued to flourish in Alaska and Canada, where DDT use was not widespread, but by 1963, a National Audubon Society survey found only 417 active nests in the Lower 48 states.

The Audubon survey came a year after ecologist and author Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, which called for an end to the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Chemicals were not only killing eagles - robins, gnatcatchers and warblers were dying from spraying done to control elm disease, and rabbits, muskrats, squirrels and songbirds were falling victim to a program aimed at controlling Japanese beetles.

Carson wrote, "Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called 'insecticides' but 'biocides'."

Many credit Carson for starting the environmental movement that in 1966 led to passage of the Endangered Species Preservation Act, which listed eagles as endangered south of the 40th parallel, Nebraska's southern border. But that law and others provided only limited means of protection. In 1972 DDT was banned and a year later the landmark Endangered Species Act (ESA) passed, providing additional protection for more species, including plants. In 1978, the bald eagle was officially listed as endangered in 43 states and threatened in Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

One way the ESA protects eagles is that it allows a buffer area to be created around nests, preventing most activities during critical nesting periods. In some states, this requirement has also stopped development that would have destroyed known eagle habitat. In Nebraska, a one-half mile buffer sometimes delays work around active nests until the young are fledged.

Betsy Finch of Raptor Recovery Nebraska feeds liver to an eagle held by her husband, Doug, at their farm near Elmwood. The organization attempts to rehabilitate raptors that are injured or poisoned and return them to the wild. This eagle, its feathers stained with vomit from the previous night's meal, was found shot near Niobrara last February. It died later that day.

The act also requires that the effects on endangered species be considered for activities conducted, funded or permitted by the federal government. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is also required to consider the effects new chemicals may have on wildlife.

Whether passage of the ESA or the ban of DDT did more to save the bald eagle is debatable. Jody Millar, bald eagle recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), said the two actions by themselves would not have had the same effect as they have had in combination.

Nesting Expands

Early North American explorers said bald eagles were abundant along the nation's coasts and waterways. In Nebraska, bald eagles were common breeders along the Missouri River in the late-1870s and early 1880s. An 1896 report noted nesting sites in Cherry and Gage counties. A 1901 report stated that bald eagles "probably formerly bred in the more heavily wooded portions of northeastern Nebraska, and it is likely a few still do, but there are no definite breeding records."

In 1973, former Nebraska Game and Parks Commission biologist Ross Lock helped monitor the first bald eagle nest documented in the state's modern history. The birds were never seen incubating and stayed near the nest along Lewis and Clark Lake in Cedar County for only a short time.

In the 1980s, with no additional nesting attempts known to have been made, Lock discussed the possibility of releasing young captive- or wild-bred eagles in Nebraska with fellow Commission biologist John Dinan, who was in charge of monitoring eagles in the state before he died of leukemia in August 2005.

"John's thought was, 'Let's just let this happen on its own. We're going to have birds move into the state and nest here. We don't really need to hack them out,' " Lock recalled. "He was right. We just let it happen."

In 1987, a pair of eagles built a nest along the North Platte River in Garden County. This pair stayed on the nest longer, but also failed to produce young. Three more unsuccessful nests were monitored before 1991, when a chick was hatched in a cottonwood tree overlooking the Platte River in Douglas County. Dinan banded the chick when it was about 6 weeks old, but it later died after apparently being blown from the nest during a severe thunderstorm.

The following year, eagles fledged two young from a nest along the Middle Loup River in Sherman County. That pair has been successful in all but one year since and has fledged a total of 24 eaglets.

The state's most productive nest was built on Lake Alice on the North Platte Wildlife Refuge in Scottsbluff County. It has fledged 30 young in 13 years, and in six of those years raised three.

The number of successful nesting attempts has steadily increased since 1991 and nests have now been built in 53 of the state's 93 counties. From 215 nests where the outcome is known, 374 young have been fledged, including 66 from 34 nests in 2005.

"We get reports from landowners who say they have an eagle nest on their property and it's been there for years but they just didn't report it," said Kari Andresen, a commission biologist who monitors eagles. "And if you look at areas like the Niobrara River that are pretty remote, the only way you're going to see an eagle nest is if you were canoeing down the river and knew what you were looking for. So there are probably quite a few more active eagle nests than we survey."

Framed by cottonwood leaves, a male bald eagle perches close to its nest near Pierce last June.

Andresen said although no surveys have been done to count them, many of the sub-adult eagles she sees while conducting nest surveys spend the summer in the state. These young birds likely hatched in Nebraska, but there have been no banding studies to confirm it.

Millar estimates there are now 7,000 breeding pairs in the contiguous United States. The last official survey compiled by the USFWS in 2000 put the total at 6,471. A June 2005 survey of the states by Environmental Defense, a group calling for the removal of the the bald eagle from the endangered species list so resources can be spent on other species, pegs the number of breeding pairs at 8,216.

Millar estimates the continental population to be in excess of 150,000, with 50,000 in Alaska, 60,000 in Canada and 30,000 to 40,000 in the 48 contiguous United States. Northern populations are considered stable and near the carrying capacity of their habitat. Millar said it probably won't be long before the same is true in the rest of their range.

While most of the continent's bald eagles breed in Canada or Alaska, most winter in the Lower 48 states. Nebraska's wintering population of eagles peaks in December. From the ground and the air, commission staff and others count eagles along Nebraska's rivers and major reservoirs each January. They spotted 1,112 eagles in the 2004 survey, below the record count of 1,453 eagles from 2002, but a considerable increase from the 300 or fewer counted each year from 1975 to 1979. The midwinter eagle survey dates to 1963 in Nebraska, but until the mid-1970s, immature bald eagles were often counted as golden eagles, making the data unreliable.

The persecution Continues

While the bald eagle has made a remarkable comeback, it is still persecuted by man despite the many laws that protect it. Mark Webb, a special agent with the USFWS, sees most of the 50 or so eagles that are found dead in Nebraska each year. Some are killed in collisions with man-made objects or trees. A few are electrocuted by power lines or struck by vehicles while feeding on road-killed animals. But most die from lead or chemical poisoning or are shot.

Webb has seen his share of shooting cases since he worked his first in 1985 as a Commission conservation officer in Beatrice. In 2002, he helped convict an O'Neill man for shooting two eagles. "The exact statement from his friends was that he had a fetish for hawks, owls and eagles and shot every one he saw," Webb said. The man pleaded guilty to violations of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and went to jail. He was the first in the state to be convicted of a felony under the act, which caries a maximum sentence of a year in jail and a $100,000 fine. Webb said.

Often, the guilty parties - mostly 18- to 25-year-old males - are misinformed about eagles' food habits. In late-2005, charges were pending against a man who allegedly killed three eagles because he thought they were killing his pheasants, Webb said. Others shoot eagles for "the thrill of killing something," he said. "These are not hunters, these are just killers."

Some people unknowingly kill bald eagles through the illegal use of lead shot while waterfowl hunting. Ducks and geese that are shot but not recovered by hunters are often scavenged by eagles, which consume the pellets lodged in the flesh of the birds. In one week last spring, Webb picked up three eagles that had died of lead poisoning along a 10-mile stretch of the Missouri River near Omaha.

An eagle uses its bill to chip a gizzard shad from a frozen sandpit lake near Ashland.

In 1985, Nebraska became one of the first states to ban lead shot for waterfowl hunting, Webb said, "but here we are 20 years later and still the most prevalent violation that I run across in the field is illegal possession of lead shot."

In 2002, Commission conservation officers and Webb helped convict three individuals in the Chambers area for killing at least eight bald eagles. The men had laced calf and lamb carcasses with a crop insecticide, and spread the carcasses across their ranches, hoping to kill coyotes. The eagles died after eating the poisoned meat or scavenging the dead coyotes.

"Their intent was not to kill eagles, but they knew they were killing eagles and they made no effort to stop their activities," Webb said. "They'd even gone so far as to recover dead eagles and bury them in the ground so they wouldn't be found. To them, it was the cost of doing business to kill coyotes."

The men were convicted of violating the Eagle Protection Act, Endangered Species Act and Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and fined $4,000 each. They were also charged with violating EPA regulations governing registered use pesticides, which carried an additional $1,000 fine.

Another threat to eagles involves the growing black market trade of bald eagle feathers. With the proper permits, members of Native American tribes can possess eagle feathers to use in religious ceremonies. The National Eagle Repository in Denver collects dead eagles from throughout the country and redistributes them, but 5,000 American Indians are on a waiting list for the 1,000 eagles the repository receives annually. Demand from collectors and others is so high that investigators have dubbed eagles "flying $1,000 bills." One case Webb worked involved the sale of a Native headdress for $25,000. Some people shoot eagles with the intent of selling them.

Recovered?

Only a handful of species, including the peregrine falcon, have been removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. Despite the threats they continue to face, bald eagles may soon join that short list.

In 1995, eagles were reclassified as threatened in the Lower 48 states. The proposal to delist them was announced with great fanfare on July 3, 1999, but it has not happened yet. The process continues, but Millar hesitates to guess when it might be complete. "I've been wrong so many times," she said.

The hurdle remaining is how the bald eagle will be managed once ESA protection is removed. Millar said the USFWS is looking at various aspects of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, as well as developing national bald eagle management guidelines. Those issues and delisting are being treated as a package deal, she said.

At the heart of the issue is whether or not bald eagle habitat will continue to be protected. Bald eagles and humans both like to occupy shoreline areas. Development on these shorelines, be it a house, hotel or factory, continues, and some fear it will encroach on prime eagle habitat if unchecked by the Endangered Species Act.

An eagle soars through hoarfrost-covered trees around Lake Ogallala last January.

In most cases, state laws will help minimize development impacts on eagles, Millar said. Eagles may also be more tolerant of man and disturbance than they once were. "In some places it's felt that [encroachment and development] is mitigated by a new generation of bald eagles that were raised in a more urban setting and are able to tolerate more urban living," she said. "That's not to say that birds of the wilderness are not as skittish as they ever were. But they're a more adaptable species than we first gave them credit for."

Lock said the overriding sentiment toward the plight of the bald eagle in the 1960s was simply one of "doom and gloom." That the species has come so far, so fast, is a wonderment. "I don't think anybody imagined it would happen," Lock said.

Add Two More

Not long ago, it would have been hard for anyone to imagine bald eagles nesting on a 10-yard-wide stretch of the North Fork of the Elkhorn River near Pierce. But since 2003, a pair has fledged six young there.

Some nearby residents had no idea eagles nested in Nebraska, much less just down the road. But now many are very familiar with the nest and pull off the county road that runs 120 yards from it to watch the birds. So many stop that the landowner jokes that he's thought of putting up a turnstile and charging admission.

The pair doesn't mind when the farmer's tractor passes the nest tree, which overhangs the field. Or when people drive the trail road that runs near the nest to fish for catfish in the river. Or when this photographer made repeated visits to check their progress. On my first visit, I watched the male bring two talons full of grass to insulate the eaglets from the chilling wind. Had I not watched as long as I did, I may not have spotted the third eaglet, which was noticeably weaker than the other two and only able to hold its head above the nest for a brief moment.

On my next visit, I watched the male bring a rodent to the nest. It was easy to tell the third chick hadn't caught up with its siblings. On the rare moments it was visible, it seemed to stagger through the nest. It was the last time I saw the chick.

The two surviving chicks were nearly grown when I later visited the nest. The female was less tolerant of my presence, and usually left the nest for a nearby tree as soon as I pulled my truck off the county road. The male was ambivalent, and stayed perched on a branch opposite the nest. On my final visit, eight weeks after the first, I'd hoped to see the eaglets taking test flights across the nest. When they were nowhere to be found, I worried they had met the same fate as the one that hatched along the Platte in 1991. As it turned out, I'd either underestimated their age on that first visit or they were early to fledge. On a short hike upriver, I was greeted by raucous cries from the female as one of the juveniles flew from a riverside cottonwood. That afternoon, both young were found perched in the nest tree under the watchful eyes of their parents.

Maybe in five years or so, they too will find a short cottonwood along a narrow river somewhere in Nebraska and add a few more eagles to the population.

The Nebraska Nongame and Endangered Species Conservation Fund supports bald eagle monitoring in the state. Click here for information on how to donate when filling out your tax return this year.

For a list of places to see bald eagles in Nebraska, click here.