Hope for river revival rides on eagles’ wings
A nesting pair of eagles raised a chick this spring and summer on Carr Island in Salisbury. The young bird has left the nest. A nesting pair of eagles raised a chick this spring and summer on Carr Island in Salisbury. The young bird has left the nest. (Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife)
Carr Island in the Merrimack River is home to the newest pair of nesting bald eagles in Massachusetts, a sign that the waterway is living up to its potential as an ideal habitat for the majestic birds, state environmental officials announced recently.
“It is exciting, because we’ve said for five or six years now that the last remaining frontier for eagles to really begin to occupy is the Merrimack River,” said Tom French, assistant director of the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
MassWildlife biologists found the eagles during a statewide survey in early summer, but the results were released in late September. Biologists found 26 pairs of eagles, one more than the previous survey in January. Carr Island, which lies between Newburyport and Salisbury, was home to the new arrivals.
Because ocean tides enter the mouth of the Merrimack, the water around Carr Island rarely freezes, said French, giving eagles migrating south from Maine and Canada during the winter a perfect place to feed on fish and ducks. But until now, new eagles have not set up residence there year-round.
“This specific part of the river has been well known to bird watchers as a good place for eagles in the wintertime,” French said. “To have a nesting pair is the next step.”
In 2005, MassWildlife scientists cut some branches from a tree on the state-owned island and set up a roost that might attract eagles, said French. “Sure enough, that’s where they nested,” he said. “It just shows things like eagles will respond positively to a boost.”
The Carr Island birds are part of a trend statewide.
The eagle population has grown steadily in Massachusetts since eagles were reintroduced to the state nearly 20 years ago, said French. The summer survey found 78 adult eagles in Massachusetts, seven more than in January. About 300 eagles have been reared in the state since their reintroduction, French said.
Before eagles were reintroduced in the 1980s, they had not nested in Massachusetts since 1905. Habitat loss and hunting and then chemicals like DDT that damaged eagle eggs almost rendered the birds extinct in the continental United States.
French said he hoped that the eagles would begin to populate all the available space along the entire Merrimack, from the mouth of the river to wilderness inland. That process has already happened along the Connecticut River, where the majority of Massachusetts eagles now live, he said.
The pair on Carr Island are probably about 4 years old, French said. They were incubating a chick in May, but that eaglet is now grown and was probably kicked out of its nest around August. Adult eagles can travel 150 miles in a day, so it is uncertain where the young eagle is now.
“Some chicks could stay home on the Merrimack,” said French. “Some could be in eastern Pennsylvania by now. It depends on the personality of the chick.”
Not all the news from the summer survey was cheery.
A windstorm blew down an eagle nest near the Wachusett Reservoir this summer, said French. One chick died, but biologists rescued the remaining chick, nursed it back to health, and released it near the Connecticut River.
(source: boston.com)