I was sitting in my son’s living room in Bozeman, Montana two days ago and an adult Bald Eagle flew overhead, two blocks from downtown Bozeman. Ten days ago Bald Eagles, eight of them, were flying overhead, or perched, in the Cottonwoods nearby, offering exceptional looks in Montana at a place called Ennis Lake. In Northern, Virginia I saw a Bald Eagle perched on a Tulip Tree in Potomac Overlook Regional Park near Washington D.C last year.
Forty years ago you would have been hard pressed to see such a site, even in places like Bozeman, Montana. Now eagles are nesting across the United States, even in large urban areas where they had not been seen in years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have de-listed the Bald Eagle from the Endangered Species Act.
In an article published in the New York Times on 11/25/08 the Bald Eagle is identified as a bird that might become endangered again as toxins are more common in the eagle’s food source. This is significant because the Bald Eagle is a symbol of our country.
The article identifies Mercury as the source of concern, but there are many other toxins of concern in the eagle’s habitat. In the early 1970’s there was 1 nesting pair of bald eagles in the state of New York, there are now 145 nesting pair’s of eagles in New York state, according to the New York Times. That is a lot of eagles for one of the nation’s most populous states.
In the early seventies DDT was a problem for eagles as well as the endangered Peregrine Falcon, and now the successful nesting of Bald Eagles may in fact be slow because of Mercury contamination in places like the Catskill region of New York, according to this article.
Eagles, like all predatory species of animal, act like “canaries in a mind shaft” and in the Catskill region of New York, there are several reservoirs that are drinking water for several million US residents in New York City. I was not aware of that.
The biodiversity Research center of Maine is studying how methyl mercury is ending up in a food chain where Bald Eagles and human beings are sitting at the top of. The Bald Eagle eats fish that are contaminated with methyl Mercury. Humans drink the water that is partial habitat for the eagles and humans eat fish from places where these types of toxins are relevant.
Mercury in eagles is cropping up throughout the US in other populations of the Bald Eagle, according to the New York Times. There is now more scrutiny in this kind of toxin contamination and in the near future it will become a major problem for Bald Eagles and humans if nothing is done.
Protection under the Endangered Species Act really helped the Bald Eagle become a success story. That protection lapsed when the eagle was delisted 2 years ago. Toxins have always been a problem for all raptorial birds, but now more so than ever the toxins are a real problem that has increased over many boundaries.
Eagle’s, formerly considered doing well, are now dying at an alarming rate from toxins they get from their food; like ducks with lead in them and fish and road kill with Mercury. It’s hard being at the top of the food chain like the Bald Eagle when you regularly eat foods with high doses of toxins in them.
Last year I saw another formerly beleaguered bird near Washington D.C., again in Northern, Virginia on a lake near Alexandria, a bird that was brought back from the brink, like the Bald Eagle, which also was scarce and in danger of extinction, the Peregrine Falcon.
The Peregrine suffered, like the eagle of today, from toxins, in the case of the peregrine it was now banned in the US that is DDT poison. The falcon’s eggs were getting too thin for the bird to reproduce successfully-so many groups went to work to bring the birds back from the brink of extinction.
We have to make sure the eagle does not fly near the edge the way its cousin the Peregrine Falcon did.
Now you can see Peregrines commonly as they migrate along coastlines dive bombing shore birds from Eastern North America. You can even watch them in cities like Boise, Idaho, as they harass the local rock dove population.
Many organizations, are working to remove these toxins from our environment. The work gets tricky as the Federal Government and large corporations try hard to block meaningful environmental efforts. Many groups work hard to identify these toxins and eliminate these harmful toxins from our environment. One of the Nationaly prominant groups that work on toxins is the NRDC.
This is a hard topic but it will be cracked for sure!!!!
Matt
