Virginia Bald Eagles reach record level

 Species has made comeback after being nearly extinct in 1970s
Richmond – Thirty years after flirting with extinction, the bald eagle has made a comeback in Virginia.

Scientists who have tracked Virginia eagles since 1977 found a record 331 pairs breeding this spring. Those birds produced a record 466 chicks.  “The increase is just phenomenal,” said Dr. Bryan Watts, director of the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary. “It’s beyond anything I think we anticipated.” Just 33 pairs of eagles were in Virginia in 1977. Then, the James River was the only major river in the state without an eagle nest.  Now the river has produced the largest number of eagles – 115 eaglets produced by 75 pairs – in 2001.  The national eagle population came close to extinction in the 1960s, largely because of DDT. The birds ingested the pesticide by feeding on tainted fish. The pesticide made the eagles’ eggs so brittle that they broke under the weight of the mother birds.

 Scientists believe kepone, a pesticide dumped in the James in the 1960s and ’70, further aggravated the problem in Virginia.  The eagle population has surged nationwide since the 1972 ban of DDT and the passing of the Endangered Species Act in 1973.  In Virginia, officials shut down a Hopewell company that was making kepone in 1975.  The state also stocked the James and Rappahannock rivers with blue catfish, a favorite eagle food. But blue catfish in the Hopewell area have high levels of toxic chemicals called PCBs, said Greg C. Garmen, a Virginia Commomwealth University fish biologist. PCBs can hurt the growth of young birds, lowering overall reproduction.  Another threat to the eagle population in the bay region is a loss of habitat as people develop waterfront property. Watts predicts this will cause the eagle population to drop again within 20 years.
 In 1782, when the eagle became the nation’s symbol, there were about 100,000 pairs in the contiguous United States.  In 1963, there were 417 pairs. Today, there are about 6,300 pairs.

EAGLE RESURGENCE
 
 

A summary of the 2001 bald eagle survey by region:
James River – 75 adult pairs, 115 chicks
York River – 47 pairs, 63 chicks
Rappahannock River – 84 pairs, 109 chicks
Potomac River – 71 pairs, 106 chicks
Eastern Shore – 20 pairs, 26 chicks
Western shore of the Chesapeake Bay- 14 pairs, 25 chicks
Hampton Roads – 4 pairs, 11 chicks
Inland areas – 16 pairs, 11 chicks
Source: Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary