UPDATE:
Number of bald eagles seen in Lake Mead Recreational Area on rise
Bird watchers can expect to see more bald eagles making Lake Mead their destination during their annual migration in timing with word last week from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the national bird will be taken off the endangered species list in February.
The number of bald eagles sighted in Lake Mead National Recreation Area has been on the rise in the past few years based on surveys in January.
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That fits with what John Hiatt of the National Audubon Society's Red Rock Chapter saw during the annual Christmas Bird Count in December.
Hiatt recorded four bald eagles, one adult and three juveniles, in the count area between Government Wash and Saddle Island.
"Typically when the ratio of young to old is high that means there's good reproduction. It's not a large sample but certainly good news," he said.
During Christmas counts 20 years or 30 years ago, "you wouldn't see any, or maybe one, not two or four," he said.
The eagles were standing on the lake's shoreline when Hiatt saw them.
"They're wintering here and will migrate north," he said. "Lake Mead has a lot of food, a lot of fish, so they have live fish they can catch and there is carrion."
The eagles are attracted to open water where they prey on fish and waterfowl as well.
"It's not the cold that drives them south, it's the ice. They can't fish if there's ice on the water," he said.
Last year, National Park Service teams recorded 67 bald eagles on Jan. 5 on lakes Mead and Mohave. That same number was reported by the teams in 2005, up from 60 in 2004. Before that there were 68 in 2003 and 79 in 2002, the highest on record.
Since 1963, the bald eagle population has rebounded from when nesting pairs of the American icon dipped to a low of 417 in the contiguous 48 states. Now there are more than 7,000 nesting pairs.
Habitat protection under the Endangered Species Act and the Environmental Protection Agency's 1972 ban on the egg-damaging insecticide DDT have allowed the bird's comeback.
Marshall Jones, deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has said the bald eagle will be delisted by Feb. 16.
KEITH ROGERS Wondering how a local story turned out or what happened to someone in the news? Call the City Desk at 383-0264, and we will try to answer your question in this column.
