2003 / The Press-Enterprise An bald eagle glares from a fencepost near Lake Hemet. A group's lawsuit involving the bald eagle comes in the wake of the recent deaths of two eagle chicks near the lake east of Idyllwild.
Posted on 11/02/2005 7:11:18 AM PST by GreenFreeper
LAWSUIT: A state group seeks to have the birds of prey taken off the endangered-species list.
By JENNIFER BOWLES and ADAM C. HARTMANN / The Press-Enterprise
A California group on Tuesday filed a lawsuit seeking to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the bald eagle from the federal endangered-species list, six years after President Clinton announced a proposal to do just that.
The lawsuit comes after the recent deaths of two bald-eagle chicks near Lake Hemet east of Idyllwild, part of a small population of bald eagles that make the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains their winter or year-round homes.
The chicks were found dead in early September after their nest fell from a tree, possibly due to a storm, said Heidi Sellers, a U.S. Forest Service wildlife biological technician.
"It's always disappointing to find something like that, but it part of the natural process, it happens," said Marc Stamer, a U.S. Forest Service biologist who runs the annual bald-eagle counts by volunteers at Inland lakes every winter.
Biologists estimate the chicks were about 85 days old and about two weeks from leaving the nest. Sellers said they were too young to survive on the ground, and they might have been injured in the fall. In addition, she said, their wings were still in sheaths, meaning they weren't ready to fly anywhere.
The chicks were born in the same area as a set of eaglets from 2003, which some biologists said might represent the first documented breeding of bald eagles in Southern California in almost 50 years.
Inland Eagles Decline
While eagles are rebounding in some states, they appear to be on the decline in the Inland mountain ranges, Stamer said. In all, there are about two dozen or so eagles that return every winter, he said. However, Stamer said, four eagles -- two at Lake Hemet and two at Big Bear Lake -- stay year-round, which is a good sign that there is enough foraging available to them.
The eagles perch on trees by the mountain lakes to prey on fish, and generally nest in nearby canyons.
Sellers said she and other forest biologists hope that satellite technology in the form of small "backpacks" attached to the eagles could track the birds' whereabouts and help them understand how the eagles use their habitats.
Eagle Lawsuit
The lawsuit seeking to remove eagles from the protection of the U.S. Endangered Species Act was filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf a Minnesota landowner who cannot build on his 7.4 acres because it contains an active eagle nest and wetlands that cannot be filled in.
Damien Schiff, an attorney for the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, said the government should stop dragging its feet and make a decision. The bald eagles are still considered a species threatened with extinction despite former President Clinton's remarks that they have recovered, Schiff said.
Chris Tollefson, a spokesman for the agency in Washington, D.C., said he hadn't seen the lawsuit and could not comment on it. But he said the agency has been delayed in removing the eagle off the list as officials figure out how protections for the birds will continue under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
"I know it's rather unusual for this amount of time to have lapsed," Tollefson said, "The hold up has really been about how the species would be managed if it were to be taken off the list."
Species Protections
Schiff said that protections for the bird under the Endangered Species Act prohibit his client from building within a 330-foot radius of the eagle's nest. Under the two bird acts that would protect the eagles once off the endangered list, only the bird and its nest would be protected and not the surrounding habitat.
At the time of Clinton's announcement in 1999, two days before July 4th, the government estimated that 5,748 nesting pairs lived across the country.
When America adopted the bird as its national symbols in 1782, the service said, as many as 100,000 nesting eagles lived in the lower 48 states. By 1963 only 417 were found, a result of the birds eating fish contaminated by pesticides used along coast and wetlands to control mosquitoes.
Reach Jennifer Bowles at 951-368-9548 or jbowles@pe.com
FReepmail me to be added or removed to the ECO-PING list!
Guess what they eat?
Otter pups.
The "meetings" between the eagle people and the otter people are a real scream.
Who's gonna be the first to question this statement?
Hey moonbat...there are large areas in British Columbia and Alaska where there are so many bald eagles that they ars considered pests.
We have Bald Eagles here in southern Michigan now. That's the most heavilly populated and farmed area of the state for those who don't know.
I have Bald Eagles all around my place in the winter months. There are a few around now and I live in Ioway.
British Columbia and Alaska aren't in the lower 48.
Eagles are frequently seen in the Tennessee Valley in northern Alabama. They nest in the Guntersville Lake area.
i thought bald eagles were protected not because they were scarce, but because they are our national bird.
I fish in Manitoba every summer. We have Eagles follow us around the lake waiting for us to release a fish who 's been hooked to deep to survive. Heck they follow us to the islands for shore lunch, waiting for handouts.
I saw a nesting pair of Bald Eagles last fall within the grounds of the Holston army Ammunition Plant.
Their tree is on the river bank very near the High explosive magazines. They are spectacular as they soar
In the early 90's I spotted adult bald eagles on two occassions within the boundaries of NYC!
Quick search found this:
BALD EAGLE RECOVERY (U.S. F&WS)
First, from this page it looks like the statement is wrong or badly worded -- in 1963 the census found less than 500 breeding pairs, which is still low but not the same as only 417 individuals.
This is a good overview:
Essentially, the main cause of the population decline was competition with humans. With the population decreasing in the early-to-mid 20th century, DDT may have contributed to additional nesting failures.
(Was that a good "questioning"?)
I always thought it was for both reasons.
ping
I have been told that there have been more than 100 breeding pairs in South Carolina for the last few years. They are a regular site in Augusta, GA every winter and a pair breed in nearby Aiken, SC. They have made an amazing comeback and I too think they should be removed from the Endangered list. It's a wondrous thing to watch one of these beautiful birds soaring on a clear, sunny winter's day or flying down and snatching a fish from the water. Awesome!
Got quite a few in CT. Interesting creatures. Had one poking around my grill early one morning. Didn't seem to care that I was 10 feet away.
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