Bald-eagle recovery starts in Arizona nests
LAKE PLEASANT — The young biologist had watched the eaglets through a scope from across the water for weeks as the birds’ parents brought them striped bass, channel catfish and what looked like a ringtail.
His temporary job, along with his biologist girlfriend, was to camp out and watch over one of about 85 bald eagle nest sites in Arizona to make sure no one disturbed the family at critical times in their development.
Now it was up-close-and-personal time. He would help Arizona Game & Fish Department raptor specialists affix leg bands for identification in the future when the birds fledge and fly among a rebounding population that the state considers a soaring conservation success.
The 6-week-old male eaglet, scarcely larger than a football, lay blindfolded and cradled against the biologist’s chest. Their hearts, the man’s and the bird’s, thumped against each other’s torsos.
“I’ve held a lot of wildlife and I have not felt a heartbeat that strong,” nest watcher Forrest Rosenbower said after the experience on Wednesday, “especially that close to (my) body.”
That heartbeat is one that many thought would be silenced in the Southwest just a few decades ago. There were only three or four known nesting territories around Arizona in the 1970s.
The eagle was listed as an endangered species nationwide until 2007, when federal officials removed it from the list. In Arizona, the Sonoran Desert population received continued protection through 2010.
It’s not entirely clear what pulled the
species out of its nosedive — a ban on the egg-busting pesticide DDT, or new rules protecting occupied nests. Both, maybe. But the eagles gradually clawed back through the 1970s and ‘80s before gaining momentum in the ‘90s.
Now roughly 65 of the state’s 85 nest sites are occupied in any given winter and spring, when eagles raise their young, said Kyle McCarty, who directs Game & Fish’s field projects for eagles. Two of the nest sites are on or near the north side of Lake Pleasant, including this one on a cliff above the water.
Another eagle biologist rappelled onto the nest ledge from a bluff above and placed hoods over the eaglets’ heads to calm them. He placed them in sacks and climbed back up where the crew could weigh them, measure talons and beaks and affix numbered leg bands.
They also picked ticks from the rock crags around the nest, hoping to avoid a repeat of the dehydration that killed the nest’s eaglets last year and that biologists attributed to the blood suckers.
As imposing as they appear, eagles are vulnerable birds in the weeks after hatching in or around February. Noise or activity that flushes a parent from the nest can cause the young eagles to get too cold and die. Later, if something — say, a motorboat below the cliff — appears to their parents to be an intruder, it could keep the older eagles from hunting, resulting in malnourished eaglets.
That’s why the department pays nest watchers to turn people away during critical weeks, and it’s why an arm of Lake Pleasant is closed to boating.
“Leave the eagles to decide when to leave the nest or when to protect it,” McCarty said.
Of course, there aren’t many disturbances more intrusive than a biologist dropping in on the nest and snatching the eaglets. But McCarty said biologists choose the right time — after the eaglets can handle a parent’s prolonged absence.
Eagles themselves can stress each other and cause nest failure. The other pair near Lake Pleasant isn’t raising young this year, McCarty said. Eagles are territorial birds and one can scare the other away when they’re competing for fish in the same area.
“It comes down to who wants it more,” he said.
Many Arizona eagles migrate to the Northwest or Canada in summer, but return and nest in almost any part of the state where there’s water. Uncertainty about the effects of climate change on the Colorado River have led to fear for the species’ future at the Grand Canyon, though for now the trend is up.
A group of teachers accompanied the team to the bluff above the nest, hoping to gain insights they can bring back to their students.
Dawn Morford, an environmental science teacher at North High School in central Phoenix’s Coronado neighborhood, said her photos and experiences from the outing will help inform lessons about wildlife conservation and appropriate policies.
“We’re able to make this a real-life experience for them,” she said. “It’s the next best thing to getting them out here physically.”
And then there was the rare opportunity to stand eye-to-eye with an eagle, and even get a picture taken with it. “This was amazing,” Morford said. Rosenbower agreed, after the honor of cradling one of the birds during its brush with humans. Later this spring he’ll move on to Michigan to help with a predator study.
He’s paid well for his nest guardianship, but on such a temporary job it’s the natural perks that count most. After watching over these birds since they were eggs, he now felt a close kinship to the next generation of America’s wild national symbol. “You get paid in experiences,” he said.
Environmental news in the Arizona Republic and on azcentral.com and is supported by a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust. Follow the azcentral and Arizona Republic environmental reporting team at OurGrandAZ on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.