Bald eagles’ increase not seen in Twin Falls

JEROME, Idaho – Although the bald eagle population appears to be recovering around much of the nation, officials say it’s struggling locally because of damaged trees in the Twin Falls region.

The birds have been losing nesting sites at a growing rate, Idaho Department of Fish and Game habitat biologist Scott Bailey told the Times-News.

Five or six breeding pairs live in the region, Bailey said, but the large cottonwood trees they nest in are falling apart, damaged by drought and wind. The trees need soil replenished by flooding to reproduce, and dams have eliminated such flooding, leaving no new trees to replace the old ones, he said.

At least three bald eagle nests have been lost to falling branches in the past three years, he said.

“What we have is a bunch of old trees that are on the way out,” Bailey said. “When those trees are gone, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Replanting would help, but many of the sites are on private property. Biologists have suggested that the landowners replant, but that’s the most the scientists can do, he said.

“We really don’t have authority over it. It really is up to the private property landowner,” he said.

The bald eagle was placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act in 1967 after such chemicals as DDT harmed the population. The bird’s status was downgraded from endangered to threatened in 1995. In 1999, the federal government began working on de-listing the bald eagle, said Rex Sallabanks, the non-game bird program coordinator for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

A recent release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service showed that the lower 48 states have gone from 487 bald eagle nests in 1963 to more than 7,000 nests today.

“This is a phenomenal example of the Endangered Species Act working the way it’s intended to work,” Sallabanks said. “We clean up our act, and look what happened.”

Idaho does have a strong bald eagle population, with 196 breeding pairs counted statewide in 2005. The state sees about 15 to 20 new pairs each year, Sallabanks said.

The eagles tend to concentrate in areas with large lakes and rivers, such as Henry’s Fork, the upper Snake River and the Clearwater River in North Idaho, Bailey said.