The Daily Standard
Story Archive
A bald eagle sits atop a tree near Grand Lake.
CELINA -The bald eagle, now a fixture in the Grand Lake region, has one of the more miraculous comeback stories within wildlife conservancy.
"They really are a wildlife conservancy success story," said Marne Titchenell, the wildlife program director at Ohio State University School of Environment and Natural Resources. "We need to remind ourselves of that. Especially (because) we don't always get the best of news concerning our wildlife and population. This is a bit of good news."
Titchenell, a guest presenter at Lake Improvement Association's meeting on Saturday morning, said the bald eagle went from having a critically low population in Ohio in 1979 to being taken off the endangered species list in 2007.
During that time the number of bald eagle breeding pairs in the state grew from four to 300, Titchenell said.
Titchenell said there are now 910 bald eagle nests in Ohio.
Today, an estimated 14 eagle nests are located in Mercer and Auglaize counties, according to Brett Beatty, an Ohio Department of Natural Resources wildlife management supervisor.
Five out of six of the nesting pairs of bald eagles successfully bred in both 2021 and 2024 in Mercer County, according to an ODNR Division of Wildlife survey taken every three years.
This year, the number of young per active nest in the county was 1.7, higher than the statewide average of 1.2 eaglets.
Eagles tend to build their nests locally in the 1,408-acre Mercer County Wildlife Management Area in Montezuma and near Behm's Landing, Prairie Creek, the Wabash River and Menchhofer Woods.
"They typically have one to three eggs, and usually there's an eagle that's dominant," Titchenell said. "It's going to get the food first. Mom and Dad, they aren't going to be like us. It's whatever eaglet is dominant, that's the one they're going to feed. When the eagle is full, that's when the other eagle, or two, get to eat. The fact that you have 1.7 is telling me that there's plenty of food that those other eaglets can get to and still survive, which is great."
A bald eagle sits atop a tree near Grand Lake.
Even so, the state has a long way to go in restoring the bald eagle population to 19th century levels, Titchenell said.
"In the 1800s, when we first got here, (there were) 5,000 nesting pairs," she said. "We're still not there here in Ohio, we're not even half that. They fell largely because of what we did. We changed the landscape a lot, we hunted them a lot, but we figured it out."
In 1940, the Bald Eagle Protection Act was enacted, which made it illegal to possess, kill or harm eagles, she said. The species took a hit in the 1960s with the usage of pesticide DDT.
Habitat destruction and degradation, illegal shooting and contaminated food sources, largely as a consequence of DDT, decimated the eagle population by the 1970s, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Eagle eggs were affected by increased pesticide use during the 1950s and 1960s, according to Ohio History Central. The eggs did not hatch because they were either infertile or their shells were so thin the weight of the adult would crush them. No young birds were surviving to replace the dying adults.
"It caused quite a few issues with a lot of our wildlife species, but especially our birds," she said.
Eagles were added to the Endangered Species Act in 1978.
Due to conservation efforts and added protections, the number of birds rebounded to such an extent the bald eagle was removed from the threatened and endangered species list in 2007.
The two main factors that led to the recovery of the bald eagle were the banning of the pesticide DDT, which made egg shells too brittle to hatch, and habitat protection under the Endangered Species Act for nesting sites and important feeding and roost sites, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says.
Although bald eagles are not on the endangered species list anymore, they are still protected, Titchenell stressed.
"We still have that Bald Eagle Protection Act in place," she said. "We've added golden eagles to it as well, and we also have the Migratory Species Act which protects all of our migratory birds."
Eagles begin to build their nests around October through December, with the eggs being laid around mid-February, Titchenell said.
"They incubate for about 35 days," she said. "They're usually leaving the nest anywhere between late May and mid-June, sometimes a little bit later or earlier, depending on when they started."
Despite a few empty nests found during the survey and some avian flu related deaths in 2022, Titchenell said Grand Lake's bald eagle population is doing quite well.
"The population is pretty stable here," she said. "Good job on everything you're doing to support your eagles."
LIA meets next at 10 a.m. July 6.
