Wildlife agencies track falcon comeback

Seven years ago, during the chilly days of autumn, passers-by noticed a pair of peregrine falcons arrive atop the 195-foot-tall clock tower at the Wood County Courthouse in Bowling Green.

County commissioners contacted the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. State officers quickly installed a nesting box for the falcons.

“Within about an hour of them finishing putting the nest in the clock tower, the falcons were sitting on it,” Wood County Administrator Andrew Kalmar recalled. “[They were] like, ‘Where have you been?’”

Bird and nature enthusiasts could have asked the falcons the same question. Up until 30 years ago, Ohio had never noted a nesting peregrine pair in the state’s recorded history. By the mid-1960s, the peregrine population east of the Mississippi had vanished.

But through the decadeslong efforts of state governments and wildlife organizations across the Midwest, the peregrines eventually made a comeback.

“The peregrine falcon [population] is larger now than it was before the 1960s,” Michigan Department of Natural Resources spokesman Holly Vaughn said. “It”s a great success story.”

It’s a resurgence so successful that the Bowling Green birds of prey have become a bit of an internet sensation.

The peregrines at the Wood County Courthouse lay four eggs annually, Kalmar said. The county installed a livestreaming camera in the clock tower to give people a peek into the publicly inaccessible nest.

After the camera broke down in 2014, Wood County commissioners partnered with Bowling Green State University — which has sported the falcon as its athletic mascot since 1927 — to install an updated “Falcon Cam” with a new website.

The Falcon Cam is active in spring, when the peregrines lay and hatch their eggs.This year the site drew nearly 100,000 page views, which translates to more than 2,000 hours of total viewing time, BGSU spokesman Dave Kielmeyer said. Viewers visited the site from 49 different countries.

“Wherever I go around Wood County, I meet people who say, ‘We were watching the falcons today on the camera,’” Kalmar said.

While learning how to fly, one of the nest’s chicks injured itself on the sidewalk outside of the courthouse. Nature’s Nursery, a wildlife refuge that rehabilitates injured animals, treated the peregrine’s head wound before contacting the ODNR to release it back into the wild.

Operations director Laura Zitzelberger said the refuge has sporadically treated peregrines since a pair first settled in Toledo in 1988. Some of that pair’s offspring injured themselves while trying to navigate the city, crashing into parked vehicles or getting trapped between tall buildings.

Most peregrines in northwest Ohio have settled in urban areas such as Toledo, Lima and Sandusky. The falcons, as predators atop the food chain, help limit the number of pigeons in urban areas.

A program to reintroduce captive-bred peregrines to urban Midwest sites began in 1982. Skyscrapers, bridges, and power-plant smokestacks substituted for the lofty cliffs atop which wild peregrines typically nest. By 2005, more than 90 Midwestern cities had undertaken reintroduction efforts.

After Ohio’s first nesting pair settled at Toledo’s Commodore Perry Apartments in 1988, the ODNR launched its own peregrine introduction program. Bob Ford, District 2 wildlife management supervisor, said the program has since surpassed its goal of establishing 30 nesting and 34 territorial pairs. Twenty-four nesting pairs gave birth to 70 young in 2016.

The success led Ohio to remove the peregrine from its endangered-species list in 2015.

Many of the youngsters hatched in Ohio have settled in other states like Michigan. But many peregrines born in Michigan have settled here. This two-way exchange enables the states to reinforce each other’s re-population efforts.

Cynthia Nowak, a member of the Toledo Peregrine Project, said the peregrine nesting pair at the University of Toledo gave birth to a falcon that settled in Jackson, Michigan. Another relocated to Rochester, New York.

But while the youngsters spread far and wide, their parents remain at their nests, occasionally disappearing for weeks but — so far, at least — always returning.

“As long as they want to come back, we’re happy to have them,” Kalmar said. “[It’s] all up to them.”