For the second time in 13 years, Game Commission and Philadelphia Zoo officials teamed up to foster a zoo-hatched eagle into a wild nest in the Commonwealth. This time the eaglet was placed in a wild nest already holding two eaglets near Doylestown, Bucks County.

 

The last time the two organizations worked together was on May 16, 1996, when a zoo-hatched eaglet was fostered into a wild nest holding two eaglets in a sycamore tree on Haldeman Island (State Game Land 290), at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers, north of Harrisburg, Dauphin County.

 

"Fostering is a process that the Game Commission has used successfully in the recent past to place eaglets that were in trees in which their nest was situated was blown down," said Dr. John Morgan, Game Commission Southeast Region Wildlife Management Supervisor. "In fact, in August of 2007, we fostered an eaglet into a Berks County nest that was separated from its parents when its nest in Lancaster County blew down in a wind storm.

 

"The decision of where to foster this Zoo-hatched eaglet was based on being able to find a nest with no more than two eaglets of similar age and size. This is not always an easy task."

 

A leading wildlife conservation and education institution, the Philadelphia Zoo has been involved in numerous bird conservation initiatives throughout the world. On April 2, the Zoo's resident pair of eagles (both rehabilitated birds that cannot survive in the wild) hatched an eaglet from an egg laid around February. 25.

 

Through an ongoing agreement with the federal government in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, this eaglet will be fostered into a wild nest further bolstering the already-recovering Pennsylvania population of bald eagles.

 

"The bald eagle is a tremendous conservation success story," said Dr. Andrew Baker, Chief Operating Officer and V.P. of Animal Programs for the Philadelphia Zoo. "We're thrilled to have been a part of this effort and are committed to the survival of other endangered species."

 

Fostering and hacking were two of the primary means of re-establishing Pennsylvania's bald eagle population.

 

"With more than 170 nesting pairs in Pennsylvania, there no longer is need to raise eagles in one place and foster them to another place," said Doug Gross, Game Commission biologist. "Protecting our eagle nesting locations with the cooperation of the landowners has proven to be an excellent strategy for eagle recovery in recent years.

 

"Pennsylvania's bald eagle nesting population is increasing at a rate of 15 percent per year with protections we have in place and with minimum intervention of this kind."

 

As recently as 1983, there were only three eagle nests remaining in Pennsylvania. That year, the Game Commission began a seven-year bald eagle reintroduction program in which the agency sent employees to Saskatchewan to obtain eaglets from wilderness nests. The Richard King Mellon Foundation of Pittsburgh and the federal Endangered Species Fund provided financial assistance for this effort. In all, 88 Canadian bald eagles were released from sites at Dauphin County's Haldeman Island and Pike County's Shohola Falls.

 

"What's so exciting about the bald eagle's return is that each year they're nesting in more counties, strengthening their population in Pennsylvania and giving more residents the chance to enjoy these magnificent birds," Gross said. "Their presence is stronger than ever and it doesn't appear that they're close to being done claiming new nesting territories in the Commonwealth. Who knows, maybe your county will be the next to host eagles."

 

Bald eagles have symbolized America's greatness for centuries and now they've become America's latest success story in wildlife management and environmental reform. But their comeback in Pennsylvania took time, because their population had been decimated.

 

Partnering with other states and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and countless other state wildlife agencies, the Game Commission helped to bring bald eagles back from the brink of extinction. The effort dovetailed with important gains made in improving water quality and the banning of pesticides such as DDT, which led to a cleaner environment and increases in the quality and quantity of freshwater fish, a staple in the eagle's diet.

 

Pennsylvania's eagle resurgence also was likely stimulated by young eagles dispersing from the Chesapeake Bay, which now has hundreds of nesting pairs, and neighboring states that reintroduced eagles, too.

 

The Game Commission currently classifies the bald eagle as a threatened species in Pennsylvania. They are no longer protected by the federal Endangered Species Act - delisted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2007 - because delisting goals have been achieved. However, bald eagles continue to receive federal protection under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which safeguards the birds and their nests from disturbances and destruction.

 

Today, bald eagles are nesting in every state but Hawaii, which they never inhabited. The lower 48 states have a nesting population that is approaching 10,000 pairs, which is up considerably from the little more than 400 pairs America had in 1963.

 

Since 1983, Pennsylvania's eagle nests have produced more than 1,100 eaglets, and the population has increased by about 15 percent annually. The heaviest production, of course, has occurred in recent years. Eagle nesting success has been 70 percent or greater for some time. Poor weather conditions have the greatest impact on nesting success, followed by nest intrusions and predators, but as more eagles nest instate and competition for prime nesting sites increases, eagle nesting success eventually may level off or drop.

 

"There's still plenty of new or sparsely-used territory for nesting pairs in the Commonwealth," noted Gross. "Some of the best remaining includes the Susquehanna's north and west branches, the Juniata River and the Lake Erie shoreline. There also are of a number of large lakes and impoundments scattered across the state with more than adequate fisheries and no eagles."

 

The state's largest concentrations of eagle nests remain along the lower Susquehanna River, the upper Delaware River basin and the wetland-dominated Pymatuning region in northwestern Pennsylvania. The area still best known for nesting bald eagles remains the state's northwestern counties.

 

"We're very excited that the release of the eagle chick hatched at the Zoo is occurring just weeks before we open our new McNeil Avian Center, which will be home to over 100 exotic birds, many rare and endangered," Dr. Baltz said. "We see both as opportunities to highlight how important our own region is for birds, and to connect all of us with birds around the world and in our own neighborhoods and what we can all do to protect them."

 

For more information, visit the Game Commission's Endangered/Threatened Species webpage.