Conserve Wildlife Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Bald Eagles’

It’s a Wrap! First Season of Delaware Bay American Oystercatcher Monitoring is a Success

Tuesday, August 15th, 2023

by Emmy Casper, Wildlife Biologist

This past winter, CWF announced a new project designed to study and monitor the population of American oystercatchers breeding along the New Jersey side of the Delaware Bay. In addition to locating nesting pairs and tracking their success, our goal is to better understand how oystercatchers utilize the bayshore habitats and what factors threaten their productivity. The data we gather with our partners at The Wetlands Institute and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be used to inform future management decisions. We spent the past few months working hard to conduct the project’s first season of monitoring, and we are happy to say that we have made significant progress in beginning to unravel the mysteries surrounding this understudied population.

Delaware Bay American oystercatcher study area. Most oystercatcher pairs this season were concentrated in the bay beaches between Stipson Island and Heislerville WMA.

Since so little is known about this subpopulation of oystercatchers, we had a lot of ground to cover in our first season of fieldwork. First, we had to locate any breeding oystercatcher pairs across 35 sites spanning approximately 45 miles of bayshore from Cape May Point to Sea Breeze. Luckily, we had a head-start based on a preliminary census survey from 2021 that documented some already existing pairs as well as some sites with potentially suitable nesting habitat. We were also fortunate to have a dedicated seasonal technician assisting with the heavy workload. That said, figuring out how to access many of these sites was definitely a learning curve. We quickly discovered that many beaches were only reachable by boat or kayak and only during a narrow window of tide and wind conditions. Other sites were walkable, but only at peak low tides, which meant our surveys couldn’t take too long without risking becoming stranded by the rising tide.

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Three Bridges Eagle Cam: Season Highlights

Thursday, March 30th, 2023

by: Larissa Smith, CWF Senior Biologist

For the second year in a row there haven’t been eagles nesting on the Three Bridges platform in view of eagle cam. The pair used the platform when it was first installed in 2021 and viewers got to watch the two chicks grow up and fledge. In 2022 & 2023 the pair have nested in a tree nest instead of the platform. While it’s disappointing that the pair didn’t use the platform, there was still plenty of avian action at the tower this season. There were several immature eagles visiting the platform this season, perhaps in the next few years one of these eagles will pair up and use the platform.

Slideshow: Highlights from the 2023 Three Bridges Eagle cam season

The eagle cam will be turned off April 1st.

Thank you to all the viewers who watch and enjoy this eagle cam. During the 2023 season there were 22,981 views of the cam. Thank you to the the eagle project volunteers, especially Mary Ellen Hill, who grab screenshots from the cam. We also thank PSE&G for hosting and supporting the eagle camera.

See you next season!

Eagles In Every County: NJDEP Posts 2020 Bald Eagle Press Release

Thursday, January 7th, 2021

NJDEP & CWF REPORT RECORD NUMBER OF BALD EAGLE NESTS, WITH EAGLES CONFIRMED IN ALL 21 NJ COUNTIES

by Ethan Gilardi, Wildlife Biologist

Photo by Northside Jim

2020 was a record breaking year for Bald Eagles in New Jersey. Going from just one recorded nest in 1980, New Jersey’s Bald Eagles hit three major milestones this year in terms of new nests, locations and total nests monitored.

A record 36 new eagle nests were found in 2020. 22 nests were found in southern New Jersey, seven in northern New Jersey, and seven in central New Jersey.

This means that Bald Eagle are now confirmed to nest in every county in the state!

An astounding (and record breaking) 220 nesting pairs of eagles were also monitored in 2020. These pairs produced a total of 307 eaglets, with an additional 28 nesting pairs tracked to nests, but laying no eggs. Of the 210 known-outcome nests, an average of 1.46 young were produced per nest, exceeding the productivity rate necessary to maintain a stable population of 1.0 young per nest.

These numbers could not have been achieved or documented without the dedicated efforts of the almost one hundred volunteers with the Bald Eagle Nest Monitor program, managed by the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ in partnership with the Endangered and Nongame Species Program. These volunteers conduct the majority of the nest-observation work vital to the Endangered and Nongame Species Program in tracking the population and nest distribution of our state’s Bald Eagles.

“The comeback of the bald eagle in New Jersey ranks among the most inspiring recoveries of endangered wildlife species anywhere,” said David Wheeler, Executive Director of the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ. “The bald eagle’s return illustrates what is possible for many other rare species when you bring together proactive wildlife management, strong public investment, and the unparalleled dedication of biologists and volunteers.”

CWF thanks our dedicated volunteers and partners who make our bald eagle conservation work possible, including PSE&G, Wakefern Food Corp./ShopRite Stores, P&G, Wells Fargo, Mercer County Parks, Wildlife Center Friends, the American Eagle Foundation, and the Zoological Society of New Jersey.

Click here to read the full NJDEP press release.


Learn more about CWF’s Bald Eagle Project & read the annual Bald Eagle Project Reports by clicking here.

Learn about tracking Bald Eagles through New Jersey EagleTrax by clicking here.

Learn more about Bald Eagles in CWF’s Field Guide by clicking here.

Virtual Eyes on Eagles

Wednesday, May 6th, 2020

Get a little wild while being safe at home! Join Conserve Wildlife Foundation and Mercer County Park Commission to get your eyes on eagles – virtually.

We’re co-hosting hour-long webinars on May 10 and June 7 with Mercer County Park Commission. Each virtual event will feature current footage collected safely from one of the bald eagle nests in the County Park system, along with bald eagle history and interpretation provided by Park naturalists and David Wheeler, Executive Director of Conserve Wildlife Foundation.

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Bald Eagle Project 2020 Nesting Season Update

Thursday, March 5th, 2020

The 2020 nesting season is off to a good start for New Jersey’s bald eagles. As of early March, eagles all over the state are incubating eggs, and a handful of nests have already successfully hatched chicks. The eagle cam at Duke Farms broadcast the first chick there hatching on February 26, and the second chick made its appearance on March 1st.

View of hatchlings from the webcam at Duke Farms

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