More Eagles Have Landed

The newest bald eagles now living at Channel Islands National Park were transported there by plane and boat, in a disorienting journey that took them far away from their Northern California birthplace.

But in bringing them to their new home on Santa Cruz Island this week, biologists said such long trips may no longer be necessary.

This is the fifth and last season of releasing the birds, they said.

The intensive effort has paid dividends on the largest of the eight Channel Islands, about 18 miles off the Ventura County coast.

This spring, two pairs of bald eagles hatched chicks -- the first born on the islands without human assistance since 1949.

“The restoration of bald eagles is the flagship of the projects” to return Santa Cruz Island to its state before ranchers arrived in the 19th century, said Kate Faulkner, chief of natural resources for the national park, headquartered at the Ventura Harbor.

Faulkner, several biologists and representatives of the San Francisco Zoo escorted half a dozen young eagles to the island Thursday, a day after they removed them from their parents at the zoo. The birds were introduced to a new home: a wooden cage known as a “hack tower,” about 10 feet off the ground.

To reach the tower, the eagles endured a rough ride from Ventura Harbor with their human escorts. In choppy seas, the National Park Service’s 100-foot vessel, Ocean Ranger, repeatedly catapulted above the whitecaps before crashing back into the roiling waters.

On Santa Cruz, the eagle chicks, kept in plastic carriers, were hauled by trucks nearly seven miles along a narrow, winding road to one of the higher points on the island’s eastern edge. They were then placed in the tower’s two adjoining containment boxes, whose metal bars don’t obscure magnificent southern views of the Pacific.

Kathy Hobson, coordinator of the zoo’s avian conservation center, said this was a good breeding year. From six bald eagle pairs in San Francisco, 18 eggs were produced and 13 chicks survived.

In all, a dozen of them will be brought to Santa Cruz through next month, which will bring to 58 the number introduced to the island since 2002.

To put one of the large birds in its containment box, field biologist David Rempel of the Institute for Wildlife Studies carefully climbed a ladder, cradling the eagle in his arm. The institute oversees the reintroduction program, which Rempel described as “pretty exciting.”

“I have invested the last four years of my life in these birds, so it’s really great to see them doing well on their own,” Rempel said.

Over the next month, the juvenile birds will acclimate to the island as their wings grow strong enough to fly. They’ll be fed through hatches at the back of their containment boxes, but the caretakers won’t make contact.

Eventually, the barred doors of the boxes will be opened so the eagles can experiment with flight. Until they can successfully hunt on their own, biologists will place food -- mostly the carcasses of the wild pigs that are being eradicated from Santa Cruz -- at accessible locations around the island.

The bird releases are part of a five-year, $3.2-million feasibility study to determine the viability of taking bald eagle chicks hatched at the zoo or in the wild near Juneau, Alaska, and relocating them to the island. The hope is that after spending weeks on the island when they are young, the birds will return to the Channel Islands to raise their offspring.

Biologists will continue to monitor the eagles, which have transmitters on their backs to track their movement, through 2008, when they will recommend whether to extend the restoration effort.

Faulkner said boaters visiting the islands have already begun to notice the bald eagles’ return. “We started getting calls last year,” she said. “Two weeks ago, we had nine bald eagles over Anacapa Island. People are really thrilled.”

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To let people monitor the progress of the first bald eagle chicks naturally hatched on the Channel Islands in 57 years, a solar-powered camera operates daily from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. The EagleCAM can be found at chil.vcoe.org/eagle_cam.htm.