Bald eagle found dead lived in wild nearly 30 years

OSAGE, Mo. -- When a fisherman spied distinctive white and brown feathers along the muddy shoreline of Truman Reservoir, he knew whom to call.

Conservation agent Ron Farr quickly responded and found the remains of an adult bald eagle that likely died a month or two before it was spotted.

But still attached to one of the eagle's legs was a metal band. It told a surprising tale of bald eagle No. 629-28111.

"It's not like the bands you see on migratory birds that are crimped onto their legs" Farr said. "These eagle bands are riveted shut. I contacted AVISE Bird Banding out of Washington, D.C., and at first, they couldn't find a record of it.

"Then they looked back even farther and found this bird was banded in Missouri on July 21, 1988. It was too young to fly when it was banded."

The band confirmed the Truman Reservoir bald eagle lived for 28 years and most likely spent nearly its entire life in the Truman Lake area, becoming a resident eagle, not a migratory one. Truman Reservoir is an hour and a half north of Springfield.

"Twenty years is a long time for any bald eagle to survive in the wild," Farr said. "Twenty-eight years is a really long time for it to live out here in the wild."

Because it hadn't yet learned to fly, the eagle most likely was banded at a nest at Truman Lake and stayed there the rest of its life, snatching fish and dive-bombing unsuspecting ducks and other waterfowl for meals. As long as the lake didn't regularly freeze entirely over during winter, the eagle had no reason to migrate elsewhere to look for food.

Farr said there's no indication the eagle died of anything other than old age. Its longevity is an indication of the success Missouri has seen in reviving bald eagle populations in the state.

"I started with MDC in 1980, and I've seen these birds take off and really start nesting in Missouri since then," he said. "They're living here and propagating their young. We've got a lot of nests that have sprouted up over the years, which they typically come back to and nest in the same nest year after year. Their nests get bigger and bigger as they add sticks to them. Eventually, when you've got 300 pounds of nest sitting up in a tree, a storm will come along and it will break off. Then, they'll go start another one in another tree."

According to the Missouri Department of Conservation, from 1981 to 1990, MDC worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield to release 74 young bald eagles in Missouri in hopes of establishing a breeding population.

The eaglets were obtained from captive breeding facilities or healthy wild populations and released in good nesting habitat at Mingo National Wildlife Refuge and Schell-Osage Conservation Area.

Similar efforts across the country helped bald-eagle populations rebound, and the nation's symbolic bird was removed from the endangered-species list in June 2007.

It is still a protected species under the Migratory Bird Treaty and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection acts, however.

Because the Truman Lake bald eagle remains were too decomposed to collect, Farr said he left them at the edge of the lake.

Typically, though, when a bald eagle or golden eagle is killed or found dead, the body and feathers are collected and sent to the National Eagle Repository in Commerce City, Colorado.

There, the feathers are processed, stored and distributed to Native American and Alaskan Native tribes for use in religious ceremonies.

It's illegal for those who aren't Native Americans or Alaskan Natives to keep bald eagle or golden eagle feathers, eggs or nests, and there can be steep fines and even jail time for offenders.