Field Reports: Eagles have returned to Lake Coeur d’Alene
From staff reports
The birds are back in town.
Kokanee salmon have moved into the shallows of Lake Coeur d’Alene to spawn and eagles have started showing up in waves to feed on them.
The Bureau of Land Management, which has been keeping track of the annual eagle gathering at the lake for 50 years, recorded its first count of the season last week: 79 eagles, including 64 adults and 15 juveniles.
Not too shabby for this early in the year. Counts typically increase through the winter. Last year, the biologist who leads the counts saw the highest number on one day in late December – more than 400 eagles.
Few of the eagles are local. Many are flying south from points north, and they’re searching for an easy meal along the way. Lake Coeur d’Alene’s kokanee fit the bill.
Millions of the landlocked sockeye salmon live in Lake Coeur d’Alene, where they were first stocked in the 1930s.
The fish in the lake are considered “late” spawners, one of two strains of kokanee.
Instead of turning red and running up rivers, the landlocked salmon of Coeur d’Alene seek out the gravel in the shallows to lay their eggs. That makes them easy targets for the birds.
Popular spots for eagle watching include Higgens Point and Wolf Lodge Bay.
Hundreds of CWD samples gathered in North Idaho unit
The hunting unit where chronic wasting disease was found in North Idaho has produced more than 600 test samples for the disease this year.
TJ Ross, a spokesman for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, said Tuesday that since July, the agency has collected 621 samples from Unit 1 near Bonners Ferry, where the state detected the condition for the first time earlier this fall.
Ross said just three of those samples have turned up positive , but that results are still pending. More samples are also likely to arrive, as there are still two weekends left in the state’s hunting season.
Idaho sends its CWD samples to Colorado State University for testing and typically tells hunters to expect results in four to six weeks.
CWD infects elk, deer and moose and attacks an animal’s nervous system. It’s not known to infect humans, though health officials advise against eating meat from an infected animal.
It’s always fatal, and left unchecked, it can decimate wildlife populations.
Thirty-five states have detected the disease.
Idaho first found it in 2021 in deer near White Bird. The cases near Bonners Ferry are the first to show up in the Panhandle region.
Washington has detected two cases in the Fairwood area of north Spokane.
Staci Lehman, a spokesperson for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in an email Wednesday that the agency has gathered 1,505 samples since July, of which 1,187 came from hunters.
Of those, 690 have come from the three hunting districts surrounding the state’s two CWD detections.