Bald Eagle Hatches at Zoo

A bald eagle has been hatched at the San Diego Zoo for the first time in 32 years, zoo officials announced Friday.

Hatched May 2 after a 32-day incubation, the eaglet is being raised at the San Diego Wild Animal Park in preparation for release this summer on Catalina Island.

The young bird is being fed chicken and mouse innards with a makeshift hand puppet, to keep it from associating with humans and thereby increase its survival chances upon release, said zoo spokesman Jeff Jouett.

The bird is to be turned over to the Catalina Island Bald Eagle Re-Introduction Project in the next few weeks to help re-establish the bald eagle nesting grounds there. Twenty bald eagles from Washington and California have been released in the island’s wild areas since the project began in 1980 under the direction of the Institute for Wildlife Studies, the Catalina Conservancy and the State Fish and Game Department, said project biologist David Garcelon.

The last successful nesting of bald eagles on the island was in 1949, Garcelon said.

“By the late 1950s, the eagle population had declined to nothing because of heavy pesticide that contaminated the fish,” Garcelon said.

A pair of eagles taken to the island in 1980 have shown some nesting activity this year, he said.

Up to now, the adult eagles apparently didn’t want to nest at the zoo, Jouett said, but officials are optimistic that another eaglet will be hatched next year.

An egg produced last year at the zoo was eaten by the adult birds, he said.