ENJOYING THE OUTDOORS: REBOUND OF BALD EAGLE POPULATION IS A CONSERVATION COUP

The national symbol, the bald eagle, not long ago was conspicuously absent in the feathered flesh over much of America.

The once common raptor, a species whose majestic image historically has been interwoven with an entire republic and its people, was sinking dangerously close to becoming a creature of history only. In the Lower 48 states, bald eagles had dwindled to a relative handful of their former ranks.

A major increase in protective measures and a mobilization of resources to reverse the trend has the bald eagle in far better shape today. Three decades ago, there were only about 4,000 bald eagles in all of America outside of Alaska. Today, there may be something on the order of four times that number.

In the Lower 48, surveys in 1962 produced an estimate of a little more than 500 bald eagles nests.

Karen Steenhof of the Raptor Research and Technical Assistance Center of the National Biological Survey in Boise, Idaho, says the most recent total nest count in the contiguous 48 states was 4,016. That number was dramatically up from a 1984 count which yielded a total of 1,757 nests.

Eagles are coming back big time, enough so that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department has recommended that their status be relaxed in the most states from officially "endangered" to "threatened." That doesn't suggest that there's an eagle in every tree, but it does reflect that the species has made a significant rebound.

Three primary factors once put eagle populations in the pits. For one, they were persecuted by people. National symbol or not, eagles have been shot and poisoned by many who regarded them as predatory pests or who merely saw them as tempting targets.

Habitat loss from the spread of civilization doubtlessly crimped the species' lifestyle. Eagles require somewhat specialized conditions to make their living, and they don't adapt to human development as well as some species.

Especially devastating to bald eagle populations were the effects of certain pesticides, particularly DDT, that crept into the food chain in decades past. some of these, chemicals which since have been banned, served to find their way into eagles through prey animals. The results were weakened ability of the eagles to reproduce, specifically through the weakening of the shells of the eggs as they lay.

The three big strikes against eagles combined to effectively rub them out in many portions of the country by about the 1940s. Overall numbers were drastically reduced, and without successful reproductions, they were becoming virtual Mohicans -- we were down almost to the last of them.

In Kentucky, the last documented nesting of that period was reported in 1949 near Swan Lake in Ballard County. That might have been the end of it except for the practice of seeding young eagles into specific area, a "hacking" program that was begun in the early 1980s.

In hacking, young, pre-flight eagles are taken from areas where they still are abundant and relocated. The young are placed on artificial, enclosed nests on towers where they are provided food with minimal human contact. When the birds reach the age of flight, ready to "fledge," they are released.

The significance of hacking is that eagles tend to return to the area where they have been fledged when they are mature and ready to nest themselves. Hacking, essentially plants eagles for future nesting.

Hacking was conducted in the Land Between the Lakes in western Kentucky and Tennessee from 1980 to 1988. During that period, 42 juvenile birds were released, plus two adults birds that had been injured and rehabilitated in captivity were set free there.

Eagle hacking shows direct dividends in the LBL. After decades of no nesting eagle presence, last spring there was a total of nine pairs of nesters in the federal area. By identification bands, biologists know that several of the birds are graduates of the hacking program.

A neat side note is that at least one eagle identified as an LBL nester is the offspring of a hacked bird, so the program has shifted into its third generation. Like a chain letter, the biological ploy is beginning to show geometrically expanding results.

Wintering eagles are a different matter than nesting eagles. The territoriality of nesting eagles holds the numbers down in a given area, but wintering eagles -- those escaping harsh weather and ice cover to the north -- are much more communal and apt to be present in force.

In the LBL, for instance, a pair of nesting eagles tends to have an entire embayment of Kentucky Lake of Lake Barkley and its drainage area on the shore to itself. When it comes to wintering eagles, several may be seen in the same general location.

One of the better area spots for winter eagle viewing, the LBL reportedly held 123 bald eagles during a recent aerial survey of its shorelines.

Other wintering eagle hot spots in the region are Reelfoot Lake in the northwest corner of Tennessee, Kentucky's Ballard County Wildlife Management Area, Illinois' Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge and Mingo NWR near Puxico in Southeast Missouri.

Many public areas that draw wintering eagles now offer special tours for viewing the birds, something that would have been largely pointless several years ago before the renaissance of the species.

The bald eagle reigns far stronger now as the symbol of a nation. More than that, it is a symbol of conservation. The larger, growing population of the white-domed raptors is hard evidence that at least part of the wild can be preserved.

The eagle's story is one of hope. It shows people that, with effort, part of nature that's down doesn't necessarily have to be on the way out.

~Steve Vantreese is outdoors editor of The Paducah Sun.