Stafford hosts eagles along its riverfront (VA)

[Donna]

EVERYONE knows that Florida is a major destination for tourists from all over. Most people would be surprised that Stafford County is a big draw for visitors from the Northeast and Southeast. Visitors with large wingspans, that is.

Stafford's waterfront areas host migrating eagles from as far north as Canada in the winter and the Gulf of Mexico in the summer. Plus, there are Virginia eagles that live here all the time.

Jeff Cooper, a wild-avian biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, is one of the people who oversee the state's eagle population.

A survey performed in midsummer last year found the eagle population to be four birds shy of 600 eagles, he said.

"That's tremendous abundance for a bird of prey," he said.

Stafford County has 16 nests, according to the Center for Conservation Biology's Virginia Eagle website. All are along the Potomac River or its tributaries.

Eagles are enjoying a resurgence in numbers after plummeting before the banning of the pesticide DDT.

"All those birds crashed because of eggshell thinning," Cooper said, "They lost their productive potential."

Cooper said the recognition that compounds like DDT had an impact on the environment is a major reason the birds have rebounded.

"It was banned in late the '60s or early '70s. Initially there was a gradual recovery up to the mid-'90s, and then the growth just skyrocketed," he said, adding that the populations should eventually level off.

The federal government has taken bald eagles off the endangered species list. They are still protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

Virginia, however, has kept eagles on its threatened and endangered species lists.

Cooper said it's because of the number of eagles in the Chesapeake Bay area and the threats to their shoreline habitats.

"We feel like we have not only a responsibility in Virginia for managing the populations, but the eastern coast," he said.

 In other words, the future of the entire eastern United States population of eagles will be affected by how well Virginia and other states around the Chesapeake Bay manage and protect the eagles' shoreline habitats.

Cooper said that some areas of the Potomac already can't support eagles because of overdevelopment.

He and his colleagues at the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service monitor eagles by both aircraft and boat. They trap eagles in the winter and put transmitters on them to monitor their range.

"We have one bird that was hanging out on the Potomac and basically flew up the I-95 corridor to just south of Baltimore, skirted it to the east and then went north to the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River," said Cooper, "then went to Assateague Island. Then it came back east to Crisfield" in Maryland.

The Center for Conservation Biology is currently tracking 63 eagles. The information gained will help researchers understand how eagles use shoreline habitat, help determine the location of communal roosts so they can be protected, and record the number of surviving offspring.

The public can help the Center for Conservation Biology by reporting nests that are not already listed on the group's website, ccb-wm .org.