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Tag: Bald eagles

  • Why bald eagles may hold clues in bird flu fight

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    A spike in wild bird flu cases across Iowa has researchers watching migration patterns, testing carcasses, and swabbing beaks daily at the State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Ames. Since 2022, more than 30 million poultry and wild birds have died from highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Iowa.As the virus settles into a fall-and-winter cycle, one species is drawing particular interest from scientists: the bald eagle. Despite frequently scavenging infected carcasses, adult bald eagles appear to be surviving at higher rates than many other birds. Researchers believe understanding why could help unlock new insights into the disease.Hearst sister station KCCI spoke with Rachel Ruden, the state wildlife veterinarian for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, about what’s driving the latest outbreak — and why the nation’s symbol may be key to understanding it.Q: What are researchers seeing with bird flu in Iowa right now?Ruden: We had a spike back in September. We saw Dubuque impacted heavily and parts of central and north central Iowa, then things went quiet through October and November. After the first week of December, we started getting reports of sick and dead geese again. What’s interesting is southern Iowa has been impacted pretty heavily. In the past, south of I-80, we really didn’t see mass mortality events related to HPAI.Q: How has bird flu changed since it first appeared in Iowa?Ruden: We were first impacted with highly pathogenic avian influenza in March of 2022. Prior to that, it was not a virus that circulated in our wild bird population in North America or South America. It was in other parts of the world.In March of 2022, it arrived during spring migration — a vulnerable time in terms of birds nesting and producing young. Now we’ve really seen it transition into this fall and winter pattern, oftentimes late fall into winter. Q: Which species are being hit the hardest?Ruden: The animals that have been impacted have primarily been Canada geese. They’re a numerous winter resident. They also do their fall migration in mid-December. So those birds bring virus from other parts and they flyway.Other things that we see very commonly are red tail hawks because these are raptors, a bird that is likely scavenging on carcasses of dead geese. That is also why there is public concern about bald eagles. Q: Many people worry about bald eagles scavenging dead geese. What are you finding?Ruden: I have been testing bald eagles since late 2024. Evidence shows that they’ve been exposed and actually survived that exposure. In adult bald eagles, 70% have had antibodies. That’s a good indicator of resilience in that population. Q: Why are bald eagles so important to this research?Ruden: We can learn a lot and maybe leverage that for therapeutics. That disparity in deaths amongst raptor species that might be scavenging on the same sick birds … if one tends to die and one tends to live, that’s interesting, so I would love to push that further.Q: Does that mean bald eagles are immune to bird flu?Ruden: We’ve seen hatch-year eagles — younger birds — that are more vulnerable, similar to what we see in young swans or other juvenile birds. But adult eagles appear to have a much higher survival rate.Q: How does this affect Iowa’s poultry industry?Ruden: Iowa leads the country in egg and poultry production, so there’s always concern. Early in the outbreak, the impact was significant. But improved biosecurity and better surveillance have made a big difference. This season, only two poultry sites have been affected so far, even with widespread bird flu activity in wild birds.Q: What should people do if they find a sick or dead bird?Ruden: The best step is to contact your county conservation department or a local wildlife professional. They’ll decide whether testing is needed and notify our lab if it could help research. If a dead bird is on private property, people can safely remove it using disposable gloves and double-bagging it before placing it in the trash.Q: Is bird flu a concern for human health?Ruden: Human cases in the U.S. have primarily been linked to poultry or dairy workers with close, prolonged exposure. There’s no known transmission from wild birds to humans in casual encounters. Still, people should avoid handling sick birds and use basic precautions if removing a dead one.Q: What’s next for bird flu research in Iowa?Ruden: We’re still learning. Bird flu is now a global phenomenon, and there’s always a risk of reintroduction. The goal moving forward is to use what we’re observing — especially species that survive exposure, like bald eagles — to guide future research. That takes time and funding, but every test helps us better understand what we’re dealing with.As outbreaks continue to shape Iowa’s wildlife landscape, researchers say one thing is clear: bird flu is no longer a one-time event, but a recurring reality — and the answers may be soaring overhead.

    A spike in wild bird flu cases across Iowa has researchers watching migration patterns, testing carcasses, and swabbing beaks daily at the State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Ames. Since 2022, more than 30 million poultry and wild birds have died from highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Iowa.

    As the virus settles into a fall-and-winter cycle, one species is drawing particular interest from scientists: the bald eagle. Despite frequently scavenging infected carcasses, adult bald eagles appear to be surviving at higher rates than many other birds. Researchers believe understanding why could help unlock new insights into the disease.

    Hearst sister station KCCI spoke with Rachel Ruden, the state wildlife veterinarian for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, about what’s driving the latest outbreak — and why the nation’s symbol may be key to understanding it.

    Q: What are researchers seeing with bird flu in Iowa right now?

    Ruden: We had a spike back in September. We saw Dubuque impacted heavily and parts of central and north central Iowa, then things went quiet through October and November. After the first week of December, we started getting reports of sick and dead geese again. What’s interesting is southern Iowa has been impacted pretty heavily. In the past, south of I-80, we really didn’t see mass mortality events related to HPAI.

    Q: How has bird flu changed since it first appeared in Iowa?

    Ruden: We were first impacted with highly pathogenic avian influenza in March of 2022. Prior to that, it was not a virus that circulated in our wild bird population in North America or South America. It was in other parts of the world.

    Mark Vancleave

    Angel, a 26-year-old bald eagle from Wisconsin that was too gravely injured to be returned to the wild, serves as “ambassador” to visitors at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minn., on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.

    In March of 2022, it arrived during spring migration — a vulnerable time in terms of birds nesting and producing young. Now we’ve really seen it transition into this fall and winter pattern, oftentimes late fall into winter.

    Q: Which species are being hit the hardest?

    Ruden: The animals that have been impacted have primarily been Canada geese. They’re a numerous winter resident. They also do their fall migration in mid-December. So those birds bring virus from other parts and they flyway.

    Other things that we see very commonly are red tail hawks because these are raptors, a bird that is likely scavenging on carcasses of dead geese. That is also why there is public concern about bald eagles.

    Q: Many people worry about bald eagles scavenging dead geese. What are you finding?

    Ruden: I have been testing bald eagles since late 2024. Evidence shows that they’ve been exposed and actually survived that exposure. In adult bald eagles, 70% have had antibodies. That’s a good indicator of resilience in that population.

    Q: Why are bald eagles so important to this research?

    Ruden: We can learn a lot and maybe leverage that for therapeutics. That disparity in deaths amongst raptor species that might be scavenging on the same sick birds … if one tends to die and one tends to live, that’s interesting, so I would love to push that further.

    Q: Does that mean bald eagles are immune to bird flu?

    Ruden: We’ve seen hatch-year eagles — younger birds — that are more vulnerable, similar to what we see in young swans or other juvenile birds. But adult eagles appear to have a much higher survival rate.

    Q: How does this affect Iowa’s poultry industry?

    Ruden: Iowa leads the country in egg and poultry production, so there’s always concern. Early in the outbreak, the impact was significant. But improved biosecurity and better surveillance have made a big difference. This season, only two poultry sites have been affected so far, even with widespread bird flu activity in wild birds.

    Q: What should people do if they find a sick or dead bird?

    Ruden: The best step is to contact your county conservation department or a local wildlife professional. They’ll decide whether testing is needed and notify our lab if it could help research. If a dead bird is on private property, people can safely remove it using disposable gloves and double-bagging it before placing it in the trash.

    Q: Is bird flu a concern for human health?

    Ruden: Human cases in the U.S. have primarily been linked to poultry or dairy workers with close, prolonged exposure. There’s no known transmission from wild birds to humans in casual encounters. Still, people should avoid handling sick birds and use basic precautions if removing a dead one.

    Q: What’s next for bird flu research in Iowa?

    Ruden: We’re still learning. Bird flu is now a global phenomenon, and there’s always a risk of reintroduction. The goal moving forward is to use what we’re observing — especially species that survive exposure, like bald eagles — to guide future research. That takes time and funding, but every test helps us better understand what we’re dealing with.

    As outbreaks continue to shape Iowa’s wildlife landscape, researchers say one thing is clear: bird flu is no longer a one-time event, but a recurring reality — and the answers may be soaring overhead.

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  • Tree that held bald eagle nest at Lake Natoma falls, nonprofit says

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    Tree that held bald eagle nest at Lake Natoma falls, nonprofit says

    RUFFLED FEATHERS OVER THEIR NEW NEIGHBORS. HIGH ABOVE LAKE NATOMA IN A TREETOP. OH, MY GOSH, YOU REALLY CAN WITH THE NAKED EYE. LOOK CLOSELY AND YOU’LL SEE A NEST OF NATOMAS NEIGHBORS. THEY’RE JUST MAJESTIC. THEY’RE JUST. THEY JUST REPRESENT AS NATURE AND THEY’RE AMAZING CREATURES. BALD EAGLES WHO WERE ONCE ENDANGERED HAVE A LOT OF FANS, JUST LIKE THE ROCK BAND WITH THE SAME NAME AND THE FOOTBALL TEAM THAT WON THE SUPER BOWL. THE EAGLES ARE MAKING A MIRACULOUS COMEBACK BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, WE ALMOST LOST THEM. TIM CASCIO IS WITH THE NONPROFIT FULL FAN FRIENDS OF LAKE, FOLSOM AND NATOMAS, AND THEY NAMED THE EAGLES MAMA AND PAPA AND HAVE BEEN TRACKING THE NESTING COUPLE FOR EIGHT YEARS WITH A LIVE CAMERA STREAMING ON YOUTUBE AND IN PERSON. WE HAVE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE OUT HERE VISITING THE NEST, AND ON WEEKENDS WE HAVE DOCENTS THAT SET UP SCOPES SO THAT PEOPLE CAN SEE CLOSE UP INTO THE NEST. MATT FERRON, WHO LIVES IN FOLSOM, LIKES TO CAPTURE HIS FASCINATION WITH THE BIRDS ON FILM. THEY’RE THE BIRD OF AMERICA, SO WE HAVE A LOT OF PRIDE WITH THAT AND JUST BEING ABLE TO SEE THEM WORK IN NATURE AND BEING ABLE TO SEE THEM FLY UP AND DOWN THROUGH THE LAKE AND CATCH FISH, IT’S JUST FASCINATING. FULL FAN SAYS THIS COUPLE HAS BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL AT MATING. THE TWO NEW EAGLETS IN THE NEST. RIGHT NOW ARE NUMBERS 20 AND 21. OVER THE PAST EIGHT YEARS, AND THEY BELIEVE THERE’S EVEN A THIRD EGG IN THAT NEST. BUT THE PROTECTIVE PARENTS ARE SPREADING THEIR WINGS EVEN MORE NOW THAT SOME UNWANTED NEIGHBORS MAGPIES, HAVE MOVED IN UPSTAIRS. THEY’RE HARASSING THE BALD EAGLES. WE DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO COME OF THIS. THE BALD EAGLES COULD JUST DECIDE AT ANY MOMENT. YOU GUYS ARE OUT OF HERE AND THEY’LL TAKE ACTION. OBSERVERS ARE TUNING IN FOR THE FEUDING FEATHERS. THERE’S NOW A NEW NEST UP THERE OF MAGPIES. SO A LITTLE DRAMA AND IT’S JUST SO FUN. IT’S GREAT. KEEP WATCHING THOUGH, BECAUSE THIS SUMMER MAMA AND PAPA WILL LEAVE THE NEST TO TEACH THEIR EAGLETS HOW TO HUNT IN THE WATER OF LAKE NATOMA IN ORANGEVILLE, MICHELLE BANDUR KCRA THREE NEWS. I’M GOING TO PUT MY MONEY ON THE EAGLES THERE, I THINK. WELL, HERE’S A WHO PICKS A FIGHT WITH A BALD EAGLE. I DON’T KNOW. WELL, HERE’S A LIVE LOOK AT THE NEST RIGHT NOW, AND WE CAN SEE ONE OF THE PARENTS THERE. WE ALSO LEARNED HOW YOU CAN TELL MAMA AND PAPA APART IF YOU’VE GOT SOME GOOD BINOCULARS. WHEN YOU’RE THERE, YOU CAN SEE THEM TOGETHER IN THE NEST. MAMA HAPPENS TO BE LARGER, AS IS THE CASE WITH MOST FEMALE BALD EAGLES, AND THE OBSERVERS SAY THAT PAPA EAGLE LOOKS LIKE HE’S WEARING EYELINER. HE’S GOT A LITTLE BLACK CIRCLE THERE AROUND HIS EYES THERE, AND YOU CAN FIND THIS AT LIKE YOU

    Tree that held bald eagle nest at Lake Natoma falls, nonprofit says

    Updated: 2:17 PM PST Jan 4, 2026

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    A tree that held a bald eagle nest at Lake Natoma, a popular spot for avid birdwatchers, fell over the weekend, according to residents in the area and a nonprofit group that monitors the raptors.Friends of Lakes Folsom and Natoma (FOLFAN) affectionately refer to the bald eagle pair that nest there as “Mama and Papa.” The group previously told KCRA 3 that the pair came to the spot at Lake Natoma in 2017. (Previous coverage of the eagles in the video player above.)In a social media post, the group said the tree fell sometime during the night or early Sunday morning.Jim Cassio, president of FOLFAN, told KCRA 3 that they’re confident that no eagles were present when the tree fell. The group noted that the eagle they call “Papa” was seen flying around where the tree once stood. Last year, thousands of residents and visitors followed along as Mama and Papa raised their eaglets. One positive note, FOLFAN said, was that there were no eggs in the nest when it fell. Cassio said it’s likely that the eagles will remain at Lake Natoma and find a different tree to build a nest in, but that’s not guaranteed. The group’s lead docent, Kathy Kayner, said the eagles could rebuild a nest in four to seven days. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. —

    A tree that held a bald eagle nest at Lake Natoma, a popular spot for avid birdwatchers, fell over the weekend, according to residents in the area and a nonprofit group that monitors the raptors.

    Friends of Lakes Folsom and Natoma (FOLFAN) affectionately refer to the bald eagle pair that nest there as “Mama and Papa.” The group previously told KCRA 3 that the pair came to the spot at Lake Natoma in 2017.

    (Previous coverage of the eagles in the video player above.)

    In a social media post, the group said the tree fell sometime during the night or early Sunday morning.

    Jim Cassio, president of FOLFAN, told KCRA 3 that they’re confident that no eagles were present when the tree fell.

    The group noted that the eagle they call “Papa” was seen flying around where the tree once stood.

    Last year, thousands of residents and visitors followed along as Mama and Papa raised their eaglets.

    One positive note, FOLFAN said, was that there were no eggs in the nest when it fell.

    Cassio said it’s likely that the eagles will remain at Lake Natoma and find a different tree to build a nest in, but that’s not guaranteed. The group’s lead docent, Kathy Kayner, said the eagles could rebuild a nest in four to seven days.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • Experts share their favorite winter birding destinations in Colorado

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    It’s hard to believe Walden Ponds Wildlife Habitat used to be a gravel pit.

    Walden Ponds Wildlife Habitat attracts plenty of wildlife, including a large number of migrating birds in the winter. (Ben Siebrase, Special to The Denver Post)

    These days, the 100-acre refuge, at 5201 St. Vrain Road in Boulder County, attracts plenty of wildlife, including a large number of migrating birds that come for five on-site ponds knit together with 2.9 miles of flat, scenic trail.

    Even on a cold December morning, it’s worth bundling up to see what’s fluttering through the reclaimed wetlands. Not far from Longmont’s municipal airport, Pella Crossing, a mile south of Hygiene, on the east side of North 75th Street, delivers a similar scene – industrial strip mines transformed into a peaceful haven.

    Feeling unseasonably hopeful, I once took my young kids birding at Walden Ponds. The hobby requires a certain level of patience and quiet – not exactly our family’s strong suits. Despite near-constant reminders, my offspring produce their own special calls: a cacophonous blend of screeches, giggles, and bickering that clears a marsh faster than you can say :white-tailed Ptarmigan.” Still, after scattering every sparrow in sight, we caught an unexpected break on the drive out.

    “Look,” my husband said, pulling over near Wally Toevs Pond. There were two golden eagles perched on a utility pole, primary feathers ruffling in the cold breeze. I fumbled for my phone, snapped a terrible, zoomed-in photo, and then, finally, we all fell silent.

    Car birding

    When I told lifelong Colorado birder Peter Burke about this, he wasn’t remotely surprised: “Golden eagles,” he explains, “like to nest on cliffs in the mountains, but they come down here for the winter and often perch on telephone poles while hunting prairie dogs.”

    Burke, who founded the guide company Rocky Mountain Birding and currently edits the quarterly journal Colorado Birds, approved of our drive-by-birding technique. In fact, car birding is one of his go-to strategies.

    You’re less likely to flush a bird this way. “Humans have the profile of a predator,” he notes. But cars? They’re more like big, slow cows – not particularly threatening.

    As a bonus, you’ll be warm in your car on a chilly day. The main message I got when I called up a handful of Colorado’s expert birders is that you truly don’t have to travel far from Denver, especially once the temperature drops.

    For some species, we’re south

    As Jacob Job from Bird Conservancy of the Rockies puts it, “Winter birding is often overlooked.” That’s a shame because we get a whole new influx of species this time of year. (And it’s worth noting that as milder winters caused by climate change reshape migration patterns, some birds are sticking it out: mountain bluebirds, for instance, can now be spotted here all year long.)

    We have an image of migratory birds flying south for the winter, but Colorado’s Front Range is south for many species, including raptors, cackling geese (a close cousin to the Canada goose), and rough-legged hawks, which breed in tundra way above the Arctic Circle then vacation in sunny Colorado. Other birds have an elevational migration within the Centennial State. Northern pigmy owls, for example, propagate in the mountains before coming to the foothills.

    This time of year, Colorado birders are primarily searching for raptors, waterfowl and sparrows. Where you go will largely depend on what you’re hoping to spot, explains Burke.

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    Jamie Siebrase

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  • Back from the brink: Indiana’s eagle reintroduction project a conservation success story

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    Every year, before the banks of Monroe Lake succumb to spring flooding, naturalist Jill Vance leads 20 or so hikers to an unassuming patch of forest on the reservoir’s northern fork.

    As they walk, Vance shares one of the Indiana’s most successful conservation stories.

    First, she explains how the state became inhospitable to bald eagles for most of the 20th century as industry, hunters and pesticides altered the landscape. Then she tells them how eagles have spent the last 40 years regaining a foothold on the Hoosier landscape, largely due to a massive reintroduction project that took place in these very woods.

    When the group arrives at it’s destination — the ruins of a hack tower, a structure that housed cohorts of baby eagles during the 1980s — it’s hard to see much past the tree trunks and vegetation growing up around the site.

    Then, Vance points out a glimmer of metal through the brush and “all of a sudden, it kind of pops out of the trees for them,” she said.

    Forty years later, the tower is be easy to overlook. The wooden floor has rotted through, and only a few flimsy stairs remain attached to telephone poles, which once propped up the tower.

    “What’s left may not be impressive in its own right, but the story is,” said Vance. “There is something special about being able to stand on that spot and see where it happened.”

    And for some of the folks along for Vance’s hikes, it’s also nostalgic.

    Almost one hundred Hoosiers helped reintroduce eagles during the 1980s. And almost every year, Vance said she walks the trail back to the hack tower with at least one former volunteer returning to see where the project began.

    A painful disappearing act

    Bald eagles were once ubiquitous across most of North America. Their range shrank northward as many were shot and shoved out of their native habitats — areas near lakes, rivers and coasts — by humans and industry.

    Before the reintroduction project, the last successful bald eagle nest in Indiana was seen in 1897. And not even legislation, in the shape of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, could reverse their decline. Bald eagles continued to disappear nationwide.

    A new threat soon emerged in the form of pesticides. Farmers began to spray crops with DDT, one of the first modern insecticides. It was used in homes, gardens and office buildings to control pests. Applicators infiltrated cities across the nation, coating the chemical on street trees, parks and front lawns. As DDT dripped into roadside drains and leached into waterways, it hitchhiked through fish and small waterfowl before ending up in the bellies of many of the nation’s bald eagles.

    “They are at the top of the food chain,” said Allisyn-Marie Gillet, Indiana’s state ornithologist. “They end up eating the things that their prey were exposed to.”

    The farther chemicals travel up the food chain, she added, the more magnified they become. A small fish might build DDT up in its tissue by eating contaminated plankton its whole life. When the creature eventually gets munched on by a bigger fish, the concentration of DDT in the new predator’s bloodstream only heightens. And when that fish, in turn, succumbs to the claws of a bald eagle, its DDT dense meat becomes a poisonous lunch for an oblivious bird.

    When female eagles went to nest with DDT coursing through their bloodstream, they struggled to rear healthy young. They could no longer create thick, sturdy eggshells — a requirement for eagles, which sit on and incubate their eggs for over a month.

    “They were producing fewer eggs, and the eggshells were cracking whenever they would sit on them,” Gillet said. “The chicks would die, ultimately.”

    Spurred by wildlife decline and the 1962 release of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” the Environmental Protection Agency eventually banned DDT.

    But the damage was already done. The Fish and Wildlife Service documented only 417 nesting pairs of bald eagles across the country in 1963, down from an estimated 100,000 pairs two centuries prior.

    Reintroduction begins in Indiana

    Bald eagle reintroduction began in earnest about a decade later, bolstered by the newly created Endangered Species Act.

    New York, Tennessee and Missouri started programs to reintroduce eagles. And in the early 1980s, Indiana finally found the cash to begin its own project in the form of the Nongame Wildlife Fund, which was money earmarked for the conservation of wildlife not typically hunted or fished.

    “We needed a flashy project that would get the public’s attention” and build momentum for the fund, said John Castrale, a retired Indiana Department of Natural Resources biologist. “It would have been a hard sell if we first introduced woodrats.”

    So, the DNR went with bald eagles.

    Technically, Indiana first reintroduced bald eagles in 1985. But the attempt was “kind of a flop,” according to Allen Parker, a DNR field technician who worked on the project and has since written “A Hope for Wings: Musings of a Raptor Hacker and Tales of Bird of Prey Recovery.”

    Three rescued eaglets from Wisconsin and Minnesota were sent to Indiana without much warning. They may have been too old to properly adjust to the Hoosier landscape, theorized Parker. And they didn’t stay long.

    “The birds took off within weeks of arrival and were never seen again,” he said.

    To help future eaglets feel more at home in Indiana, the DNR built them a designated home base: the hack tower Vance now tours with curious Hoosiers near Monroe Lake. It became the epicenter of the state’s bald eagle reintroduction project for four years.

    Volunteer linemen helped Parker place telephone poles and rig the floor joists, but from there, Parker pieced most of it together himself. He fastened a pulley system to his truck to hoist cage walls, tools and bald eagle rearing paraphernalia onto the structure.

    “Every single piece had to be hauled up that way,” Parker said. He spent 12-hour days designing the layout, nailing in the flooring, and assembling the 10-foot-tall cages. “But I got the whole thing built.”

    Under the leadership of DNR nongame biologist Chris Iverson, Indiana started rearing bald eagles at the tower in 1986.

    The eaglets came from Alaska, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. A team from Indiana, plus local contractors, climbed the northern forests to fetch seven- or eight-week-old eaglets by hand.

    Parker remembers fighting through twigs and branches to reach eagle nests, which can be six feet wide and weigh over a ton. Once he popped his head over the edge, his immediate concern was grabbing the chicks — often cowering in a far corner — before one of them jumped over the far edge. After scooping them into a bag, Parker would simply “zip them up, hook them up to a rope, and lower them down” to the forest floor.

    From 1986 to 1989, the yearly excursions brought about 70 eaglets to Indiana. But the chick-snatching wasn’t all terror and crib robbery, Parker stressed. He said Alaska’s eagle populations were so abundant the younger birds struggled to all find food. In Indiana, there was plenty.

    Long days and smelly nights

    Parker described the eaglets who arrived at Monroe Lake as “half fuzzy, dumpy looking dudes.”

    It takes four of five years for their signature white feathers to completely grow in. At only a few weeks old, young eaglets were covered in ruffled, brown feathery fluff.

    Two to three eaglets typically shared a cage, and Parker found himself half-living on the hack tower with them.

    He fed them roadkill, fresh fish and donations from friends and neighbors. He monitored their health and cleaned out their cages. And all the while he watched their personalities develop.

    One year, two large females started bullying a much smaller male. Whenever the boy went in for a meal, the girls would jump and attack.

    “I ended up going in at night, grabbing him, putting him in another cage with two other females,” said Parker. “And lo and behold the next day, he started beating the crap out of the two of them. And he was eating just fine.”

    The eagles built muscle as the weeks went on, preparing for their first flights. When the wing flapping became incessant, the DNR team knew the eagles were just about ready.

    Each bird was fitted with two bright orange wing tags before release to note their origin in Indiana. They wore federal and state aluminum leg bands, one on each leg. And Parker’s team glued tiny radio transmitters to their central tail feathers to track and monitor the birds as they dispersed.

    Then, they opened the cages.

    The eagles’ first flights were often clumsy, almost embarrassing affairs, according to Parker.

    “Sometimes they would glide out and forget that they had to flap. They’d just land right in the lake,” he said. “Or they would try to land on a perch and not put on the breaks. And they’d end up basically hanging upside down. Figuring all this flight stuff out took them a while.”

    Some eagles needed rescue and a little extra time, but eventually, each cohort left their cages for a final time and soared away from the northern fork.

    The early years

    John Castrale took over the bald eagle project in 1989, just in time to oversee the last cohort of eaglet releases. The next phase of reintroduction was a waiting game.

    “We knew this wasn’t going to be immediately successful,” he said.

    Eagles spread out far and wide during the first years of their life. They don’t typically nest or return home for four or five years. Castrale got reports of eagles boasting orange wing bands in “virtually every eastern state,” and as far south as Texas.

    “As these birds aged, the reports of them were closer and closer,” said Castrale. “In fact, virtually most of them ended up in Indiana.”

    Despite being ready to wait, the DNR saw the first inkling of success in 1989.

    “All of the sudden, a pair of eagles built a nest within eye shot of the hack tower,” said Parker, who was still working on the reintroduction. “First one in Indiana in over 90 years and they put it right there.”

    The pair didn’t immediately produce any eggs, which isn’t uncommon, according to Parker. Instead, he worried what would happen when he released the last batch of eaglets into what was becoming an established territory for the newly arrived nesting pair.

    “I was concerned,” he said. “But the really cool thing was they kind of adopted them because they had failed their nest. So here these now adult eagles were bringing food to the hack tower where the eagles were in the cages.”

    Using radio receivers, Castrale, Parker and the DNR team tracked the eagles to see when they left the immediate area.

    Parker said he wasn’t sad to watch the eagles disperse. Rather, he saw them leaving Monroe Lake and venturing off as a sign the eagles would soon be back for good.

    Bald eagles everywhere

    The first Indiana-born bald eagles in nearly a century hatched in 1991, leading to hundreds of young fledged over the following 20 years. Nesting pairs have recently been reported in the hundreds, up from zero in 1988. The program was such a success the state removed bald eagles from the list of species of special concern in 2020.

    “They have become so abundant,” said Gillett, who continues to oversee the bald eagle population. “We estimate there are more than 350 pairs that are breeding or nesting throughout the state every year.”

    Even more eagles fly down to Indiana each winter. They feast on the shores of the Wabash River, reservoirs and waterways across the state.

    Some threats still exist on the Hoosier landscape. Eagles sometime ingest fragments of lead ammunition left behind in animals like white tailed deer. And recent outbreaks of the avian flu have killed off millions of waterfowl and shorebirds.

    Still, eagles are persisting — and they’re in relatively good health, according to the DNR. The project was also an effective banner for the Nongame Wildlife Fund, which has since raised more than $13 million. The nongame program successfully reintroduced peregrine falcons and river otters, and they are now working on wood rat and hellbender conservation projects.

    In the meantime, eagles continue to spread out across the state. The reintroduction team assumed most of the population would settle in the southern third of Indiana, where large reservoirs and river systems create ample habitat. But some sightings have found eagles nesting near cornfields, highways or by small lakes and streams.

    “They nest in virtually every county in the state,” Castrale said. “They are a lot more adaptable than we give them credit for.”

    IndyStar’s environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.

    Sophie Hartley is an IndyStar environment reporter. You can reach her at sophie.hartley@indystar.com.

    This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana’s eagle reintroduction project a conservation success story

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  • At least 118 eagles, 107 hawks among thousands of birds trafficking ring killed, prosecutors say

    At least 118 eagles, 107 hawks among thousands of birds trafficking ring killed, prosecutors say

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    Billings, Mont. — A man helped kill at least 118 eagles to sell their feathers and body parts on the black market as part of a long-running wildlife trafficking ring in the western U.S. that authorities allege killed thousands of birds, court filings show.

    Travis John Branson is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court on Sept. 18 for his role in the trafficking ring that operated on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana and elsewhere.

    Prosecutors say the Cusick, Washington man made between $180,000 and $360,000 from 2009 to 2021 selling bald and golden eagle parts illegally.

    “It was not uncommon for Branson to take upwards of nine eagles at a time,” prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Montana wrote in a Tuesday court filing. “Not only did Branson kill eagles, but he hacked them into pieces to sell for future profits.”

    Eagle wings, tails, feathers and other parts are highly sought by Native Americans who use them in ceremonies.

    Prosecutors asked Judge Dana Christensen to sentence Branson to “significant imprisonment” and restitution totaling $777,250. That includes $5,000 for every dead eagle and $1,750 for each of 107 hawks investigators said he and his co-conspirators killed.

    Prosecutors’ claims challenged  

    Branson’s attorney disputed the prosecutors’ claims and said they overstated the number of birds killed. The prosecution’s allegation that as many as 3,600 birds died came from a co-defendant, Simon Paul, who remains at large. Branson’s attorney suggested in court filings that the stated death toll has fueled public outcry over the case.

    “It is notable that Mr. Paul himself went from a 3,600 to 1,000 bird estimate,” Federal Defender Andrew Nelson wrote in a Tuesday filing, referring to a statement Paul made to authorities in a March 13, 2021, traffic stop.

    Nelson also said restitution for the hawks wasn’t warranted since those killings weren’t included in last year’s grand jury indictment. He said Branson had no prior criminal history and asked for a sentence of probation.

    Branson and Paul grew up in the Flathead Reservation area. Since their indictment, Paul has been hiding in Canada to evade justice, according to Nelson.

    Paul’s defense attorney didn’t immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

    Investigators documented the minimum number of eagles and hawks killed through Branson’s text messages, prosecutors said. Two years of his messages weren’t recovered, leading prosecutors to say the “full scope of Branson’s killings is not captured.”

    Government officials haven’t revealed any other species of birds killed.

    Eagle, other bird parts in great demand

    Bald and golden eagles are sacred to many Native Americans. U.S. law prohibits anyone without a permit from killing, wounding or disturbing eagles, or taking their nests or eggs.

    Illegal shootings are a leading cause of golden eagle deaths, according to a recent government study.

    Members of federally recognized tribes can get feathers and other bird parts legally through from the National Eagle Repository in Colorado and non-government repositories in Oklahoma and Phoenix. There’s a yearslong backlog of requests at the national repository.

    Branson pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy, wildlife trafficking and two counts of trafficking federally protected bald and golden eagles. He faced a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the most serious charge, conspiracy. Under a plea deal, prosecutors said they would seek to dismiss additional trafficking charges.

    Federal guidelines call for a sentence of roughly three to four years in prison for Branson, they said.

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  • New Jersey moves to take bald eagles, ospreys off state list of endangered species

    New Jersey moves to take bald eagles, ospreys off state list of endangered species

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    After decades of efforts to restore populations of bald eagles and ospreys, New Jersey wildlife officials are proposing to take both birds of prey off the state’s endangered species list.

    Once critically threatened in large parts of the United States, populations of both species have recovered significantly thanks to conservation programs. In the 1970s and early 1980s, New Jersey had just one surviving pair of bald eagles. The state now has documented a record 267 nesting pairs, including 255 that laid eggs.

    Ospreys, also known as fish hawks, live mainly along New Jersey’s coast and get their food from the state’s creeks, marshes and bays. Last year, state wildlife experts documented a record 800 occupied osprey nests, up from a low of about 50 in the early 1970s.

    Both species were decimated by habitat loss and the use of pesticides like DDT, which polluted waterways and food sources during and after World War II. Reproductive problems caused by DDT led to bald eagles and ospreys laying eggs that had shells too thin to withstand incubation. The insecticide used to control mosquitos was federally banned in 1972. 

    In the early 1980s, New Jersey began a bald eagle reintroduction program that involved relocating pairs from Canada and fostering them in habitats where they had once been abundant. Populations saw major gains over the last 15 years, particularly in areas around the Delaware Bay. Nesting pairs have more than doubled since reaching 119 in 2012. 

    “The recovery of these species from near extirpation during the 1980s in New Jersey is a dramatic example of what is possible when regulations, science, and public commitment come together for a common purpose,” said David Golden, assistant commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Fish & Wildlife division.

    New Jersey currently lists bald eagles as endangered in the state during their breeding season and threatened during the non-breeding season. Ospreys are currently listed as threatened in New Jersey. Under the proposed rule change, bald eagles’ status would be changed to a species of special concern. Ospreys would be classified as stable.

    NJDEP will accept public comments on the proposed rule change until Aug. 2.

    Bald eagles were removed from the federal list of endangered species in 2007, but they remain federally protected from hunters under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. In Pennsylvania, which has had success with similar restoration efforts, bald eagles were removed from the state’s endangered and threatened species lists in 2014.

    Increased populations of both species have contributed to more frequent sightings in the region, including encounters with injured birds. In Ocean City, a bald eagle that appeared to be stunned was rescued on a residential block in March and taken to a Delaware wildlife refuge to be rehabilitated. And in February outside Harrisburg, a Pennsylvania state trooper rescued a bald eagle that had been injured after it was struck by a car.

    On the Atlantic City Expressway, the Golden Nugget casino opted to keep an outdated billboard advertisement up two summers ago when it was discovered a family of ospreys had made a home on the structure.

    “Many people have worked for years and decades to bring these species back from the brink, including biologists, volunteers, and all those who protect and steward habitat for rare wildlife,” said Kathy Clark, chief of the state’s endangered and nongame species program. “This is an achievement for all those who work on behalf of the natural ecosystems of New Jersey.”

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    Michael Tanenbaum

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  • The Uplift: Unconditional love

    The Uplift: Unconditional love

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    The Uplift: Unconditional love – CBS News


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    A couple shares their blended family’s message of unconditional love. A TikTok star named Alex the Great gets widespread attention. Plus, go inside a museum of oddities.

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  • World’s largest gathering of bald eagles threatened by Alaska copper mine project, critics say

    World’s largest gathering of bald eagles threatened by Alaska copper mine project, critics say

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    World’s largest gathering of bald eagles threatened by Alaska copper mine project, critics say – CBS News


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    Up to 4,000 bald eagles migrate to the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve annually on the Chilkat River. However, a plan for a new copper mine poses a serious threat to their habitat, environmentalists say. Jonathan Vigliotti has more.

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  • Now It’s Nikki Haley

    Now It’s Nikki Haley

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    Does Nikki Haley really have a shot at beating Donald Trump? Does any Republican?

    On Monday afternoon, a basketball gym in Bluffton, South Carolina, was packed with people who had come to hear Haley’s latest sales pitch. Hundreds more were waiting outside. No Republican candidate besides Trump can reliably draw more than a thousand attendees, but about 2,500 showed up for Haley. (Granted, this speech was in Haley’s home state, where she formerly served as governor. Also, the gym was a stone’s throw from the Sun City retirement community, a place where, gently speaking, people may have had nothing better to do at 2 p.m. on a Monday.) One of Haley’s volunteers told me this weekday event had originally been booked at a nearby restaurant, but that, given the current excitement of the campaign, organizers pivoted to the gym, on the University of South Carolina at Beaufort campus. Everyone in Haley’s orbit is understandably riveted. She’s squarely challenging Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for second place in the Republican presidential primary, no matter how second that place may be.

    While the former president still floats high above his dwindling field of competitors, Haley is the only person who keeps rising in the polls. Her climb is steady, not a blip. Haley’s campaign and super PAC are planning to spend $10 million on advertisements over the next eight weeks across Iowa and New Hampshire. On Tuesday, she received an endorsement from the Koch brothers’ network, Americans for Prosperity Action, and along with it an undisclosed amount of financial support. (It will be a lot.) But this year-end, all-in effort to stop Trump ignores the fact that he is a singular vortex, a once-in-a-century figure, a living martyr with a traveling Grateful Dead–like roadshow. His abhorrent behavior and legal woes do not matter. Three weeks ago, at his rally in South Florida, vendors told me that items with Trump’s mug shot are their biggest sellers. How does a mere generational figure, as her supporters hope Haley might be, compete with that?

    Haley bounded up onstage in a light-blue blazer and jeans. “We’ve been through a lot together,” she told the crowd. She meandered back and forth—no lectern, no teleprompter. When you ask people what they like about her, many point to her presence, her poise. Haley delivers her stump speech in a singsong voice. A few words, a pause, a smile. Speaking to the Low Country crowd, she seemed to be thickening her southern accent and peppering in a few extra-emphatic finger points for good measure. She’s just a down-home, neighborly southerner whose most recent job happened to be in Manhattan, serving at the United Nations. The volunteer who had bragged to me about the venue change later pulled out his phone and showed me a photo of himself and Haley at a wedding reception. He pointed to her bare feet. She’s so real, he said.

    Read: Nikki Haley offers an alternate reality

    Several women in the audience were wearing pink shirts with a Margaret Thatcher quote on the back: If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman. Sue Ruby, a 74-year-old attendee from nearby Savannah, Georgia, was wearing a WOMEN FOR NIKKI button on her sweater. “I feel like we’ve given men a lot of years to straighten our society out, and they haven’t done so great, so let’s try a woman,” she said. Ruby told me she’s a Republican who begrudgingly voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in the past two elections because she viewed Trump as a threat to democracy. A Sun City resident named Lorraine, age 79, told me that “it’s time for a woman,” but that she would nevertheless vote for Trump if he wins the nomination. “I don’t want to vote for the opposite,” she said, refusing to say Biden’s name. Carolyn Ballard, an 80-year-old woman from Hilton Head, South Carolina, told me she’s a lifelong Republican who voted for Trump twice, but that she believes he’s past his prime and that Haley is her candidate. “He just irritates people and he stirs up a lot of trouble,” she said of Trump. “Although he’s very smart, and he did a lot for the country. I mean, everybody was happy when he was president.”

    Haley doesn’t lean as hard into gender dynamics as past female presidential candidates have. Nevertheless, she skillfully uses her womanhood and Indian heritage as setups for certain lines. “I have been underestimated in everything I’ve ever done,” she told the room. “And it’s a blessing, because it makes me scrappy. No one’s going to outwork me in this race. No one’s going to outsmart me in this race.” Or this: “Strong girls become strong women, and strong women become strong leaders,” which had a surprise left turn: “And none of that happens if we have biological boys playing in girls’ sports.” (Huge applause.)

    Courting Never Trump voters, exhausted Trump voters, and, yes, even some likely Trump voters simultaneously is not an easy trick. She hardly ever criticizes her former boss. Here’s her most biting critique from Monday: “I believe President Trump was the right president at the right time … and I agree with a lot of his policies. But the truth is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him.” (Note the passivity; she won’t even say Trump catalyzes the chaos.) Having already served as his ambassador to the UN, she may be under consideration for vice president. Compared with his attacks on Ron DeSantis, Trump has gone relatively soft on her, opting for the mid-century misogynistic slight “birdbrain.” Like most of her competitors, Haley has said she would pardon him.

    Whereas Trump has tacked authoritarian and apocalyptic, Haley has mostly kept her messaging grounded. At the rally, she bemoaned the price of groceries and gas. “Biden worries more about sagebrush lizards than he does about Americans being able to afford their energy,” she quipped. (She also called out her fellow Republicans for adding to the deficit.) She’s a military wife, and spoke about her husband’s PTSD and the persistent problem of homeless veterans. Though she lacks Trump’s innate knack for zingers, she landed one about how things might change if members of Congress got their health care through the VA: “It’ll be the best health care you’ve ever seen, guaranteed.”

    Although many of her fellow Republicans have adopted a nativist view of the world, Haley waxes at length about America’s geopolitical role. (And subsequently gets tagged as a globalist.) “The world is literally on fire,” she said Monday. She affirmed her support for both Israel and Ukraine, and went long on the triple threat of Russia, China, and Iran, paying particular attention to China as a national-security issue. In doing so, knowingly or not, she began to sound quite Trumpy. “They’re already here. They’ve already infiltrated our country,” Haley said. “We’ve got to start looking at China the way they look at us.” She called for an end to normal trade relations with China until they stop “murdering” Americans with fentanyl. She chastened the audience with images of China’s 500 nuclear warheads and its rapidly expanding naval fleet. “Dictators are actually very transparent. They tell us exactly what they’re going to do,” she said.

    Perhaps Haley’s biggest advantage right now is her relative youth. She’ll turn 52 three days before the New Hampshire primary. Trump has lately been making old-man gaffes, drawing comparisons to Biden, who was first elected to the Senate the year Haley was born. She speaks wistfully of “tomorrow,” of leaving certain things—unspecified baggage—in the past. “You have to go with a new generational leader,” Haley proclaimed. Onstage, she endorsed congressional term limits and the idea of mental-competency tests for public servants older than 75. The Senate, she joked, had become “the most privileged nursing home in the country.” Throwing shade at both Trump and Biden, she spoke of the need for leaders at “the top of their game.” Hundreds of gray-and-white-haired supporters before her nodded and murmured in approval.

    Monday’s event took place roughly 90 miles south of Charleston, where, in 2015, Dylann Roof murdered nine Black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church, hoping to start a race war. At the time, Haley was governor of South Carolina, and Trump—who had descended the golden escalator and announced his candidacy for president just the day before—still seemed like a carnival act. Photos of Roof posing with a Confederate flag ricocheted across social media. Haley had the flag taken down from the South Carolina statehouse, a reversal from her earlier position on the flag. Five years later, after the murder of George Floyd, Haley tweeted that, “in order to heal,” Floyd’s death “needs to be personal and painful for everyone.” During Monday’s rally, though, she sounded much more like an old-school Republican: “America’s not racist; we’re blessed,” she said. “Our kids need to love America. They need to be saying the Pledge of Allegiance when they start school.”

    As her audience grows, she continues to tiptoe along a very fine line: not MAGA, not anti-MAGA. In lieu of Trump-style airbrushed fireworks and bald eagles and Lee Greenwood, she’s going for something slightly classier (leaving the stage to Tom Petty’s “American Girl”) while still seizing every opportunity to own the libs. At the rally, she attacked the military’s gender-pronoun training and received substantial applause. “We’ve got to end this national self-loathing that’s taken over our country,” she said. Early in her speech, she promised that she would speak hard truths. As she approached her conclusion, one hard truth stuck out: “Republicans have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president. That is nothing to be proud of. We should want to win the majority of Americans.” It was the closest thing to a truly forward-thinking message that any serious Republican has offered this cycle.

    In the most generous of interpretations, the race for the GOP nomination is now among three people: Haley, DeSantis, and Trump. Mike Pence is already out. Tim Scott, Haley’s fellow South Carolinian, dropped out two weeks ago. Vivek Ramaswamy, who has struggled to break out of single digits in the polls, recently rented an apartment in Des Moines and will almost certainly stay in the race through the Iowa caucuses. Ramaswamy has also unexpectedly become Haley’s punching bag: Her campaign said she pulled in $1 million in donations after calling him “scum” during the last debate.

    At next week’s debate in Alabama, the stage will likely be winnowed to Ramaswamy, Haley, and DeSantis. (“When the stage gets smaller, our chances get bigger,” Haley told her rally crowd.) DeSantis seems to be betting his whole campaign on Iowa, and has secured the endorsement of Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. This weekend, DeSantis will complete his 99-county tour of the state. Haley needs to beat DeSantis, but she also needs his voters if she has any serious shot of taking on Trump. If DeSantis drops out before Haley, his supporters are far more likely to flock to Trump. So maybe Haley needs a deus ex machina. In 2020, Biden’s campaign was viewed as all but cooked when, here in South Carolina, with the help of Representative Jim Clyburn, everything turned around, propelling him to Super Tuesday and the nomination.

    Haley’s campaign declined to let her speak with me. A spokesperson, Olivia Perez-Cubas, instead emailed me the following statement: “Poll after poll show Nikki Haley is the best challenger to Donald Trump and Joe Biden. That’s why the largest conservative grassroots coalition in the country just got behind her. Nikki is second in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina and is the only candidate with the momentum to go the distance. Ron DeSantis has a short shelf life with his Iowa-or-bust strategy.”

    David A. Graham: Nikki Haley is the new Ron DeSantis

    As rally-goers made their way to the parking lot, I struck up conversation with a man in a T-shirt that read NOPE NOT AGAIN, with Trump’s hair and giant red necktie decorating the O. He wore a camouflage baseball hat with an American flag on the dome. The man, Mike Stevens, told me he was a 25-year Army veteran, and that he was disgusted with Trump.

    “He’s a bully. He’s not good. He causes hate and discontent,” Stevens said. “I mean, he didn’t uphold the Constitution. And now we’ve had a judge say that. First time ever—no peaceful transfer of power? Even Al Gore did it. I’ve always been a Republican, but if it’s him and Biden, I’ll vote for Biden, I guess.”

    He was excited about Haley, and had been texting his friends and family about her rally—trying to wean them off their Trump addiction. But he also told me he had written Haley a letter: He was dismayed by her promise to pardon Trump, and he needed her to know that.

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    John Hendrickson

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  • US proposal would permit eagle deaths as renewables expand

    US proposal would permit eagle deaths as renewables expand

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    BILLINGS, Mont. — The Biden administration on Thursday proposed a new permitting program for wind energy turbines, power lines and other projects that kill eagles, amid growing concern among scientists that the rapid expansion of renewable energy in the U.S. West could harm golden eagle populations now teetering on decline.

    The Fish and Wildlife Service program announced Thursday is meant to encourage companies to work with officials to minimize harm to golden and bald eagles.

    It’s also aimed at avoiding any slowdown in the growth of wind power as an alternative to carbon-emitting fossil fuels — a key piece of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda. It comes after several major utilities have been federally prosecuted in recent years for killing large numbers of eagles without permits.

    The federal government already issues permits to kill eagles. But Thursday’s proposal calls for new permits tailored to wind-energy projects, power line networks and the disturbance of breeding bald eagles and bald eagle nests.

    Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams said the new program would provide “multiple pathways to obtain a permit” while also helping conserve eagles, which she described as a key responsibility for the agency.

    Bald eagle numbers have quadrupled since 2009 to about 350,000 birds. There are only about about 40,000 golden eagles, which need much larger areas to survive and are more inclined to have trouble with humans.

    The number of wind turbines nationwide more than doubled over the past decade to almost 72,000, according to U.S. Geological Survey data, with development overlapping prime golden eagle territory in states including Wyoming, Montana, California, Washington and Oregon.

    In April, a subsidiary of the Florida-based utility industry giant NextEra Energy pleaded guilty in federal court in Wyoming to criminal violations of wildlife protection laws after its wind turbines killed more than 100 golden eagles in eight states. It was the third conviction of a major wind company for killing eagles in a decade.

    Federal officials won’t divulge how many eagles are reported killed by wind farms, saying it’s sensitive law enforcement information.

    Nationwide, 34 permits in place last year authorized companies to “take” 170 golden eagles — meaning that many birds could be killed by turbines or lost through impacts on nests or habitat, according to permitting data obtained by The Associated Press. More than 200 permits were in place to allow the killing of 420 bald eagles, according to the data.

    For each loss, companies are responsible for ensuring at least one eagle death is avoided somewhere else.

    Illegal shootings are the biggest cause of death for golden eagles, killing about 700 annually, according to federal estimates. More than 600 die annually in collisions with cars, wind turbines and power lines; about 500 annually are electrocuted; and more than 400 are poisoned.

    Yet climate change looms as a potentially greater threat: Rising temperatures are projected to reduce golden eagle breeding ranges by more than 40% later this century, according to a National Audubon Society analysis.

    “Birds tell us that climate change is the biggest threat they face,” said Garry George, director of the National Audubon Society’s Clean Energy Initiative. If it’s executed responsibly, he said the new program could strengthen protections for eagles as renewable energy expands.

    ——

    On Twitter follow Matthew Brown: @MatthewBrownAP

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