Falling from nests is one of the leading causes of death and injury for eagle chicks.
It happens every year all over the province, but in the Lower Mainland the problem is amplified by the lack of suitable trees for breeding pairs to build their nests in. They prefer big strong Douglas firs that can support their massive nests, which can weigh thousands of pounds. But years of logging has left them no alternative but to use more fragile trees like Cottonwoods.
In 2011, the branches of one Cottonwood gave way in Vancouver’s Jericho Beach Park causing the nest it supported to plummet to the ground. The Vancouver Park Board consulted with leading eagle expert David Hancock and devised a sturdier setup – an aluminum platform that was secured 90 feet up one of the area’s few Douglas firs.
The breeding pair eagles that formerly occupied the collapsed nest gravitated to the new platform and set up house. But there was a problem. Every year their chicks have fallen from the platform and been killed or injured. The survivors are taken to the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (OWL) in Delta, which does its best to help the surviving eaglets recover but often their broken wings and legs don’t heal sufficiently to allow them to be released back into the wild.
But on Tuesday, Vancouver Park Board arborists joined David Hancock at the Jericho Beach Park site to fix the problem. Their plan was to build up the side of the platform with logs and cedar branches.
“They are anchoring large cedar branches to build a ring around the nest platform that will make it more stable and wider and they are building perches out of the sides that should reduce the number of eaglets falling off the edges,” Vancouver Park Board biologist Nick Page said.
Hopefully next season eaglets will not meet the same end as their ill-fated siblings. Last year, all three eaglets fell from the Jericho Beach Park nest. While one did survive the fall, it suffered a broken wing and its future is precarious. It remains at OWL in Delta where they hope it will regain the ability to fly.
OWL is a not-for-profit organization that rehabilitates hundreds of birds of prey every year. They are hold their first-ever Gala on October 22nd.
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