The Harrison River is on track to break its own world record for bald eagles – if the crush of humanity does not intervene.
With the annual Fraser Valley Bald Eagle Festival less than a week away, the raptors are arriving in unprecedented numbers, but so are hordes of bird watchers seeking a close-up look.
“We’re in fear of loving them to death,” David Hancock, a festival director, said in an interview Sunday. “We have to do something to compensate for letting people know how wonderful this is. It’s only wonderful if you stand back.”
The annual festival seeks to celebrate the “beauty and biodiversity of the Fraser River Valley” by honouring the eagle and salmon.
Live video cams – located both underwater to observe salmon and on the Chehalis flats to observe eagles – further encourage people to drop by and see for themselves.
The problem is, they are getting too close.
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The society is urging visitors to keep a “respectable distance” so that the eagles are not frightened off feeding and resting sites.
“It’s disturbing, this monster we have going with the world’s largest eagle source,” he said. “There’s constant bloody kayakers, canoeists, Jet Skis, jet boats driving the eagles off.
“We have unleashed something we have to get hold of here and get people to be more responsible.”
Hancock, a trustee with the American Bald Eagle Foundation and chair of the Surrey-based Hancock Wildlife Foundation, said it is important the eagles are not disturbed, especially on the feeding ground flats where the Chehalis River flows into the Harrison River.
“That’s why the eagles congregate there. But now we have people congregating, which is exactly what the eagles don’t need. Going out onto the flats is an absolute no-no for these birds. It lifts them off where they need to sit and eat.”
He encouraged visitors to stay to the main deep river channel of the Harrison River or stand on the shoreline.
Hancock said he observed a world-record 7,362 eagles at Harrison-Chehalis on Dec. 11, 2010, over about three kilometres, and estimated there were 10,000 eagles in the greater area.
In early November that year, just over 1,500 eagles were observed.
Just over a week ago, an estimated 2,500 eagles were observed in the same area, with “several hundred arriving daily,” raising the potential for 2012 to set a new record, Hancock said.
Brackendale near Squamish recorded its highest eagle count of 3,769 eagles in 1994.
The Harrison eagles, attracted mainly to a late run of chum salmon, have migrated south due to colder temperatures and declining runs further north on the B.C. coast and in southeast Alaska.
They are best viewed on the Harrison River from the Chehalis River downstream to Harrison Mills near Highway 7. The eagles are not observed in the Village of Harrison Hot Springs.
For further information on the festival, Nov. 17-18, visit www.fraservalleybaldeaglefestival.ca.
Hancock’s live cameras can be viewed at www.hancockwildlife.org.
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