Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 12, 1990 TAG: 9004120798
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
An aggressive campaign to save the eagle was begun in the 1970s when humans had pushed the bird to the brink of extinction with the pesticide DDT.
Now, 17 years after DDT was banned and the eagle was designated an endangered species, federal officials say the bird's numbers are growing.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's plan to downlist the eagle was based on national population figures and nest distributions that met goals set in four of five regions, including the Chesapeake Bay.
The number of eagle nests on the bay shoreline has grown from 33 in the early 1970s to more than 90 last year. The number of eagle nesting pairs has risen from about 400 in the early 1960s to 1,188 in 1981 to more than 2,600 last year, the service said.
But in the next 30 years, more than 2 million people are expected to move into the bay watershed, based on recent projections by state and federal planners. Most of them will come for expensive waterfront real estate where eagles now live. All but a handful of the bay nest sites are on private property.
"The bald eagle around the Chesapeake Bay is likely to be up against the wall in just a few years because of an unprecedented rate of destruction of habitat," said Dana Bradshaw, a biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, the lead state agency for protecting endangered species.
"Habitat destruction is irreversible," he said. "We were able to bring the eagle population back by taking DDT off the shelves, but we won't be able to tear out condos and put back the big, old trees."
Based on population projections for the bay region, James Fraser, associate professor of wildlife at Virginia Tech, predicts that nearly all eagle habitat - usually older pine forests along the water - will be destroyed in 40 years.
Fraser and Mitchell Byrd, a professor at the College of William and Mary and leader of the eagle recovery team for the bay, argue that developers will be less likely to avoid building near eagle breeding sites if the bird loses the aura that accompanies the term "endangered."
Merely developing in proximity to a nesting tree could affect the number of eagles because an eagle needs about a square mile of open space to thrive. Developers could leave nesting trees but still threaten the eagle's survival by developing too close to them. .
Virginia was among 20 states to comment last month on the service's announcement that it planned to take the eagle off the endangered list.
"The comments went about 50-50," said Daniel James, a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Minneapolis, which administers the federal efforts to protect endangered species.
After scrutinizing reports on the 1989-90 winter breeding season, the service will decide by fall whether to proceed with its plans for the eagle, James said. The proposal would then be advertised in the Federal Register, and public hearings are to be held.
"Relative to the other 560 or so species of plants and animals on the endangered species list, the bald eagle is not doing too badly," James said. "Because it is meeting our recovery goals, it is incumbent on the Fish and Wildlife Service to downlist it and direct our resources where it is going to accomplish the most good. . . . where there is the greatest need."
Under the federal Endangered Species Act of 1973, "endangered" is a technical term for a species in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range. A threatened species is one likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future.
Both receive the same legal protection, with people convicted of harming them subject to the same fines and jail terms, James said.
by CNB