Bald Eagles Take a One-Way Flight to California

Gulping down Mountain Dew, the biologist was fighting fatigue. He had slept six or seven hours in the last couple of days. On top of that, his hand was swollen and infected. An eagle chick had pierced it with talons as sharp as a longshoreman’s hook and then decided to hold on for a while.

Even so, David Garcelon gave a hearty greeting to the dazed bird he was freeing from its shipping crate.

“Hello, little one,” he said. “Welcome to Santa Cruz Island.”

The 8-week-old bird appeared only a little less weary than Garcelon, president of the Arcata-based Institute for Wilderness Studies. Just a few days before, the bird had been minding its business in a treetop nest 100 feet above an island in southwestern Alaska. Now, it had become part of a five-year, $1-million effort to bring bald eagles back to the remote coves and craggy cliffs of Channel Islands National Park, about 2,700 miles south.

As recently as a half-century ago, the magnificent raptors soared over the islands, swooping into the Pacific for fish and happily feasting on beached sea-lion carcasses. But DDT dumped into the Los Angeles sewer system tainted the fish the eagles ate, effectively robbing the birds of the ability to reproduce.

With proceeds from a lawsuit against the pesticide’s manufacturer, the National Park Service has been working since 2001 to repopulate rugged Santa Cruz Island with endangered bald eagles. On Catalina, residual DDT has weakened bald eagles’ eggs so much that they must be incubated to hatch. Even so, park officials were optimistic as they prepared to test the blood of eagles on Santa Cruz for traces of the deadly chemical.

“Here’s a species that’s not been around because of us, and now we have a chance to put it back,” said Russell Galipeau, superintendent of Channel Islands National Park. “It just makes me feel good.”

Restoring the species means more than doing them a good turn, though. As park managers see it, the bald eagles are a crucial part of the ecological puzzle that rules life on the isolated island. When the bald eagles disappeared, golden eagles came in, drawn by easy pickings among thousands of feral hogs and delectable island foxes.

Now the Park Service is trying to bring back the native foxes, which were nearly driven to extinction. That means contracting with hunters to kill the pigs and shipping golden eagles to a Northern California refuge. It also means reestablishing the bald eagles on Santa Cruz with the hope that they will keep out their less-aggressive cousins.

Garcelon has been in the eagle-repopulation business for more than 20 years. This week, he and his crew surveyed Alaskan eagles’ nests by helicopter and took skiffs from island to island for a closer look. A professional trapper shot a cross-bow into the upper reaches of trees, hoisting himself up a line to the eagles’ immense nests, which can weigh as much as 4,000 pounds.

Up in the high branches, he coaxed 10 fledglings into canvas bags and a new future as residents of Southern California.

In animal crates, they flew Alaska Airlines to Los Angeles, were trucked to Ventura for a 90-minute boat ride, then sat in the back of pickups wending their dusty way up old ranch roads lined with fennel and sage.

When Garcelon and his staffers gingerly uncrated them, they all reacted differently.

A few were docile. One frightened eagle skittered beneath a truck. Another opened its mouth repeatedly in wordless indignation, managing only a parakeet-like chirp.

For three months, they will roost in two wooden towers atop a ridge commanding ocean views. Staffers careful not to be seen will slip in daily rations of fish. As the birds grow, they will acclimate to their new surroundings.

One day, the staffers will fit the birds with radio transmitters, unlock the bars of the towers and let the eagles fly.

So far, 23 birds have been released, with 14 remaining on Santa Cruz or visiting islands nearby, according to Park Service officials.

Five have died attempting to wing their way across the Santa Barbara Channel, and four have roamed to various spots on the mainland.

One bird was tracked as far as Yellowstone National Park. It had wandered the West before being struck by a car and killed in Utah earlier this month.

But scientists anticipate more deaths in the course of the program, saying that 90% of the birds transplanted to Santa Cruz last year are still doing well.

After all, the island harbors no natural enemies for bald eagles, and food is always just a short flight away.

But the real test of success, scientists say, is whether the eagles relocated today can breed the eagles of tomorrow.

“If we can get past the contamination issue,” Garcelon said, “this is prime real estate.”