Michael P. wrote -

> > Eagles are usually not the shyest of birds--ask the pair that set up
> > their eyrie in a tree directly beside Highway 10 in Ladner BC, one
> > of the busiest highways in Greater Vancouver. Or the ones that simply
> > glare grumpily down at you from a tree you happen to be walking
> > under. Not to say that non-urban eagles aren't a little warier, but usually
> > it would take a combined tractor-pull contest and drag race in the next
> > field over to disturb the average eagle ...

to which Kelly M. answered -

> Interesting comments, particularly in view of the results of Mark Stalmaster's
> research on the Skagit River which found that Bald Eagles were being
> disturbed by bank fishers, driftboat fishers, Eagle-watching rafters, and
> others and that this disturbance was reducing feeding opportunities and
> potentially compromising their survival or their condition going into the
> following breeding season. Now, Dr. Stalmaster is the expert on Bald Eagle
> energetics and food requirements so I would be foolish to argue his
> conclusions. Needless to say, he recommended restrictions of human
> activities on portions of the Skagit to reduce effects to overwintering
> eagles.
>
> However, Bald Eagles sometimes appear quite oblivious to the things going on
> around them.

I quote from Frank Beebe's Bald Eagle account in his "Falconiformes of B.C." (1974):

"In wilderness situations, Bald Eagles are greatly disturbed by human intrusion in their nesting
territories, but they show a high degree of adaptability and tolerance if the human activity is
not directed toward them. Thus, on the B.C. coast they are completely unconcerned about the
passage of boats, large or small, close by their nesting trees. However, they become very upset
the moment any of the humans regularly seen on the boats set foot on shore. In places where they
see humans afoot or in vehicles regularly they become excited only when the nest tree is climbed. Their sensitivity to human intrusion is therefore conditioned by the degree to which
the adults are exposed to human activity. They certainly do not require the isolation of deep
wilderness for successful reproduction, but they do require a noninterfering human attitude, or
better, a complete lack of interest by humans in their affairs. They react to human disturbance
in a more definitive way than do Golden Eagles, becoming obviously worried and disturbed and
flying around uttering weak vocal protests, occasionally even beginning a mock attack, but never
carrying through. Human invasion of the nest itself during incubation causes abandonment of the
eggs. The birds do not renest in the same season. A similar invasion, when young are in the
nest, is tolerated and the young are not deserted. Yet the disturbance seems to be remembered
and usually results in the abandonment of the nest after the young are flying, and the
relocation of the pair in a new nest some distance away the year following."

- Jack





--------------
Jack Bowling
Prince George, BC
jbowling at direct.ca