A transmitter was placed on a chick from the Duke Farms Eagle Cam nest for the first time this year. This nest cam has been watched by thousands of people over the years and now cam watchers will be able to follow the movements of “Duke” after fledging.
Continue reading “Tracking a Duke Farms Eagle”
Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ in partnership with the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife’s Endangered & Nongame Species Program, is releasing results of the 2019 NJ Bald Eagle nesting season.
2019 was a record year for NJ eagles with the highest number of active nests and young fledged in the history of the project. This year, 238 eagle nests were monitored, of which 189 were active (laid eggs) and 248 young fledged. This is the highest number of fledges ever, surpassing the previous high of 216 in 2016.
We owe the incredible amount of information about NJ eagle success to the NJ Eagle Project nest watchers. An extremely dedicated group of approximately 85 volunteers monitor nests during the season, recording the important dates and watching for possible issues at nest sites.
This season two eagle cams were available to watch on the CWF website: one at Duke Farms and another at Mercer County Parks. The Duke Farms nest produced two chicks, and one was outfitted with a satellite transmitter; the movements of this eagle are on CWF’s Eagletrax website .
More details on the 2019 nesting season will be available in the annual eagle report to be posted by December. The report will include individual nest data, state totals, and eagle recoveries and resightings.
CWF partners with PSEG, the Mercer County Park Commission, Mercer County Wildlife Center, and Wildlife Center Friends and Duke Farms to protect bald eagles in New Jersey. Thank you to the Wakefern Food Corp./ShopRite Markets, Wells Fargo, Chemours and the American Eagle Foundation for additional eagle program funding.
Eagle Project volunteer Randy Lubischer captured this amusing photo of a recent eagle fledge from Monmouth County, being harassed by an Eastern kingbird. In the photo below it looks like the much smaller bird is hitching a ride.
By: Larissa Smith, CWF Biologist
The male at the Duke Farms nest is banded with a green NJ band, A/59. He is nineteen years old this season.
On March 24, 2000, at 2 weeks of age, A/59 was fostered from the Greenwich nest in Cumberland County to the Rancocas nest in Burlington County. On May 15, 2000 he was banded, a backpack transmitter attached and fledged on June 3. ENSP’s staff tracked A/59 until the transmitter’s signal was last recorded on October 22. You can read more details in the 2000 Bald Eagle Report. A/59 started nesting at the Duke Farms nest in 2006 and has been in the public eye ever since on the Duke Farms eagle cam.
We have an interesting update on one of A/59’s offspring, “Tiny” C/94, who has been nesting in CT since 2014. “Tiny’s” original mate was a Massachusetts banded female. In 2017 nest monitor Cyndi Pratt Didan, reported that he had a new mate with a green NJ band on her right leg. Cyndi was recently able to get a photo of the females band and we could read the code as D/15.
In 2010, D/15 was one of two female chicks banded at the Duke Farms nest. Yes, she is Tiny’s sibling. Tiny was banded in 2009. It is interesting that two eagles from the same nest in NJ ended up as a pair nesting in CT and that we are able to know this information via bands and the Duke Farms cam. Cyndi has not yet found where the pair is nesting but will keep us updated.
by Larissa Smith: CWF Biologist
On Sunday January 13th, 2019 photographer, Bob Cook was taking photos of the ~20 eagles at a lake in a Mercer County park. He noticed that one of the eagles had a green tag on it’s right leg. After reviewing the photos it was established that the band was D/99.
D/99 is from the Duke Farms nest located in Somerset County. He and his two siblings grew up as a celebrities their every move being watched by viewers of the Duke Farms eagle camera. The three chicks were banded on May 12th, 2014. Measurements showed that there there were two males and one female, D/99 was the youngest male. All three fledged from the nest in June 2014.
Unfortunately, in August of 2014 we received a report that D/98, the oldest male, was found dead up in Maine. He most likely died of injuries that occurred during a fight with another eagle. This most recent sighting of D/99 is the first report of either of the two remaining chicks. D/99 will be five years old in April and reaching the age where he will be looking for a mate and establishing his own territory. It is always nice to know that a chick has survived to adulthood and most likely has come back to NJ to nest.
by: Larissa Smith, CWF Wildlife Biologist
The Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ in partnership with the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, Endangered and Nongame Species Program, has released the 2018 NJ Bald Eagle Project Report.
“Two hundred-four nest sites were monitored during the nesting season, of which 185 were documented to be active (with eggs) and 19 were territorial or housekeeping pairs. Thirty new eagle pairs were found this season, 20 in the south, nine in central and one in the north. One hundred-twenty-one nests (66%) of the 182 known-outcome nests produced 172 young, for a productivity rate of 0.94 young per active/known-outcome nest. The failure rate was well above average with 61 nests (33%) failing to produce. The Delaware Bay region remained the state’s eagle stronghold, with roughly half of nests located in Cumberland and Salem counties and the bayside of Cape May County.”
The number of active nests has increased while the number of young eagles fledged has decreased since a high of 216 young fledged in 2016. During the 2018 eagle nesting season there was an abundance of cold, wet, windy and snowy weather which was the cause for a portion of the nest failures. As the eagle population increases, there are more eagles competing for territories. This can also be a contributing factor in nest failures. NJ is still in the range of 0.9 to 1.1 young per nest which is needed for population maintenance with a productivity rate of 0.94 young per known-outcome/active nest in 2018. The 2018 NJ Eagle Project Report has all the details on the project including telemetry, re-sightings and recoveries.
The success of the eagle project is due to the tremendous dedication of the NJ Eagle Project Volunteers. They monitor the nests in all types of conditions and education people about the eagles with enthusiasm.
THANK YOU
Ghost pots in Barnegat Bay
By: Emily Heiser; Wildlife Biologist
Derelict fishing gear continues to plague the depths of Barnegat Bay. Often lost through storm events or due to boat traffic, lost or abandoned crab pots (ghost pots) become an unintentional deathtrap for a variety of marine species and reduce otherwise harvestable resources. CWF and their partners at MATES, Stockton, and ALS have been working to recover lost pots in Barnegat Bay since 2015.
Over the course of the last three field seasons, 1,300 crab pots have been recovered and their bycatch has been extensively documented. Notably, CWF and MATES have been focusing on how to further help northern diamondback terrapins who often find themselves caught in ghost pots. In 2016, one pot contained the remains of 17 terrapins.
As we enter the fourth field season of pot collections, the project hopes to not only recover as may pots as possible, but also to glean further information on how the pots move in a variety of substrates and under a variety conditions. To bring further awareness to the issue, CWF teamed up with the awesome folks at Citizen Racecar to produce a short informational film about ghost fishing and its effects on Barnegat Bay. Visit our Facebook page to view the video: https://www.facebook.com/wildlifenj/
One person can make a difference!
Thank you.
“Bald Eagles have made an amazing recovery in NJ since the 1980s. Today the eagle population still faces challenges and one of those is lead poisoning. Lead in the environment is dangerous to eagles as well as humans, and is often deadly. Unintentional poisoning of eagles can occur when they scavenge gut piles from deer or other game species shot with lead ammunition. It takes just a tiny fragment of lead to sicken and kill an eagle. Each year avian rehabilitators receive eagles that are diagnosed with lead poisoning and most will die. There is no good treatment for lead poisoning.”
by Larissa Smith: CWF Biologist
Some of New Jersey’s eagle pairs are getting an early start on the 2019 nesting season. Eagles in NJ will begin incubation anywhere from January through March. NJ Eagle Project volunteers usually report eagles back and working on the their nests in the late fall/early winter. But some pairs have already been spotted sprucing up their nests in preparation for the upcoming nesting season.
By: Larissa Smith, CWF Biologist
On August 20th, 2018 a resident of Monmouth Beach reported a young eagle that had been perching in the neighborhood and was possibly injured. NJ Eagle Project Volunteer Randy Lubischer, was able to respond and check out the situation. The bird was a hatch year eagle, which means it fledged during this nesting season. The eagle was feeding on a swan carcass and though Randy could get fairly close, the bird was able to fly a short distance and appeared to have an injury to its left leg. The eagle had been seen feeding on the swan carcass for the past few days, so it was assumed that its injury was keeping it from hunting and the bird would only get weaker over time.
