Calling all birders, nature enthusiasts out there who wish to monitor the everyday schedule of majestic bald eagles. You may now be a spectator to the daily grind of a pair of nesting bald eagles via a video camera installed at Arizona’s Lake Pleasant outside Phoenix, stated a report.
The live streaming of the nest started on Tuesday, said the Arizona Game and Fish Department.
Their official website states that bald eagles have made Lake Pleasant their home since 1979. It was in 1984 that the nesting attempt was first documented. Sadly, the young ones were not born until 1993. But it did witness the survival of 28 birds that eventually learned to fly. This process is termed as fledgling.
Live streaming, annual closures
Any disturbance or interruption on the part of the public can disturb nesting pairs and keep them from breeding. Federal laws, too, have been enforced to keep people from bothering bald eagles and other migratory nesting birds.
Annual closures around nesting period help protect birds during the breeding season. Once shut for the public, the areas open only in late spring or early summer.
According to Arizona Game and Fish Department’s website, with live streaming nature enthusiasts can catch uninterrupted, raw glimpses of wildlife. However, since it’s nature, it embraces beauty and cruelty both, therefore, viewer’s discretion has been advised while watching any live event.
Furthermore, it explains that the nesting period doesn’t necessarily follow a timeline. That is, laying or hatching of eggs could be altered. Like in wildlife, hostility, violence among growing birds may injure or kill them. However, the Arizona Game and Fish Department rules out intervening in such issues. Though, if the need arises, they may temporarily interrupt the live stream.
The department also live streams pupfish via an underwater camera, sandhill cranes in south-eastern Arizona, a bat roost from Cluff Ranch Wildlife Area. Thereby, making bald eagle the fourth such species to be streamed live.
You may click here to watch them live.
https://www.azgfd.com/wildlife/viewing/webcamlist/baldeagle/baldeaglecam/
Increase in the population
Since the alarm for it being an “endangered species” was sounded in the US in 1967, bald eagle population in Arizona has seen a significant rise in the past years. Their conservation status now states them to be in the category of “least concern” (population increasing). Apart from illegal hunting, pollution, intrusion at nests, being some of the reasons, the usage of DDT, a chemical was also blamed for their dwindling numbers. Since it affected reproduction of the birds, the chemical was banned for use in the US in 1972. And since then, the bald eagle population is said to have been growing significantly.