9 Canadian Bald Eagle Chicks to Join Catalina Flock

Nine baby bald eagles will soon join a tiny flock on Santa Catalina Island, a gift from the government of the Canadian province of British Columbia, to help increase the small number of bald eagles--America’s national symbol--in Southern California.

The baby birds will be taken from their nests on Vancouver Island at about 8 weeks of age and transported to man-made nests on Catalina Island in mid-June, according to David Garcelon, president of the Institute of Wildlife Studies in Arcata, Calif., who negotiated the gift.

They will become part of a 5-year-old program to re-establish a bald eagle habitat on Santa Catalina, where the birds disappeared more than 40 years ago.

“It’ll be the first time we’ve gone outside the United States to bring chicks to the island,” Garcelon said Wednesday. The current flock of about 12 birds are survivors of 25 previously transferred from Northern California and Washington to Catalina.

There are only an estimated 59 breeding pairs of bald eagles in the entire state, Ron Jurek, wildlife specialist for the state Department of Fish and Game, said Wednesday. The number has more than doubled since the bald eagle was listed as an endangered species in the state in 1971, he noted. “We’d like to see more,” he added. “They’re not growing as fast as we’d hoped.”

The giant predators, which can reach three feet in height with wing spans up to eight feet, have been vulnerable to poisoning from pesticides, he said. “Shooting is still a major problem, and accidents--collisions with wires or vehicles--are common,” Jurek added.

In British Columbia, however, bald eagles appear to be thriving, said Bill Munro, wildlife specialist at the province’s Ministry of Environment, with their numbers estimated at 15,000.

“They’re not at all endangered here,” Munro said. “You don’t have to go far to see one.” In some areas, he added, they are a problem for farmers because they congregate in large numbers and prey on newborn calves and lambs.

This will be the second time British Columbia has helped American efforts to increase the species’ numbers. Last year, Munro said, nine adult bald eagles that had been injured and permanently crippled in accidents were given to a federal wildlife preserve in Maryland for breeding purposes.

Adult eagles transferred to new, unfamiliar surroundings tend to leave, presumably in search of their former nesting areas, which explains why the adult birds sent to Maryland were crippled and why 8-week-old chicks will be moved to Catalina.

‘Feeding on Their Own’

“By that age (eight weeks), they’re feeding on their own, in that they can tear their food apart by themselves,” Garcelon said. “Also, at that point they start to become aware of what’s outside their nest. If we have them on Catalina Island, they’re going to imprint that.”

Garcelon, a 32-year-old graduate student in wildlife management at Humboldt State University in Arcata, founded the Institute for Wildlife Studies in 1979 to save endangered birds of prey such as bald eagles. Working with the Santa Catalina Conservancy, he started the Catalina project in 1980. It is funded partially by the state Department of Fish and Game, which has given about $40,000 to the effort over the past three years, and through private donations.

Garcelon has begun a fund-raising effort and an “adopt-an-eagle” campaign to cover the cost of finding, removing and transporting the baby eagles. The effort, he said, will cost “about $5,000 per bird.”