HILLSBOROUGH — Thanks to a webcam, the public has once again witnessed two baby bald eagles hatched last weekend in a nest on the Duke Farms property.
Both eaglets late Saturday were born in a nest on the 2,700-acre property on Route 206. The camera has allowed researchers to monitor two parent nesting bald eagles and their nest without disturbing the birds.
The public is invited to watch the eagles 24 hours a day at
www.dukefarms.org, however, the nest is not visible at night.
Last year, the public had witnessed the hatching of three eaglets in the nest. This
year, the camera is expected to remain on the air until the baby eagles have fledged and activity at the nest concluded for the season, probably in July or August, said Holly Dunbar, a spokeswoman for Duke Farms.
Timothy M. Taylor, executive director of Duke Farms, said in 2009 when the nest was first filmed on the webcam, he had then received phone calls both nationally and internationally about the Web cam.
Working in collaboration with Duke Farms, the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey (CWFNJ), a nonprofit organization dedicated to New Jersey's rare wildlife and providing place-based wildlife education, has developed four lesson plans for educators based on the use of the Web cam in local classrooms. Taylor expects many local school districts to utilize the lesson plans.
The pair of bald eagles in 2004 initially had made the nest. In December 2009, the eagles had to repair the nest damaged by storms and high winds from this fall and winter, Taylor said.
Dunbar has said the Bald eagles have been making a comeback after many years of decline, due in part to an end to the once widespread use of the pesticide
Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT). As a result of a growing public concern about the quality of the environment, such pesticides as DDT and others were banned in the United States.
Along with protection offered by the federal Endangered Species Act, scientists
credit the pesticide ban as a major factor in the comeback of the bald eagle, the osprey and other species of birds, Dunbar said.
In New Jersey, that comeback has been dramatic. In 1985, only a single pair of
nesting bald eagles were recorded in the state. In 2009, that figure increased to 84
pairs, with 69 active nests. About 56 of the 69 nests were known to be successful in
producing a total of 99 baby eagles, she said.
