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Wednesday,
September 1, 2004
Press Release
South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks News
Bald eagles in South Dakota enjoyed a banner year in 2004.
The Department of Game, Fish and Parks reports that 20 bald eagle pairs were
confirmed to have fledged a total of 34 eaglets. Bald eagles usually lay two
eggs, but often only one survives.
"This was a very good year for eagles, with many nests raising two young per
nest," said Carol Aron, a biologist for GFP. "One nest actually fledged three
young, which is almost unheard of for bald eagles."
Game, Fish and Parks, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park
Service teamed up this spring to try and locate and monitor all of the bald
eagle nests in the state. Six new nests were found. Then volunteers monitored
them throughout the summer to find out if the nest was successful and how many
young survived.
Bald eagles generally nest near large water bodies, but some of the new nests
were found in shelterbelts several miles from water. "With more eagles nesting
in South Dakota, they may need to branch out away from traditional nesting areas
to find an unoccupied territory," Aron said. "The young that hatched this year
will not breed for five or six years. But with successful years like this one,
we can expect to find more bald eagle nests throughout the state in the future."
The agencies will continue to monitor bald eagles in future years to better
understand the bald eagle population. "We know there are more nests out there
that we didn’t find this year," Aron said. "There’s at least a couple on the
Cheyenne River, where we saw newly fledged young this spring but were unable to
locate the nests."
According to Aron, landowner cooperation was a key to the monitoring effort. "We
had great cooperation from landowners, both in helping us locate nests on their
property and assisting with monitoring."
Landowners are encouraged to report bald eagle nests to GF&P by calling
605-773-2745 any time of the year. "Winter is often the best time to find
nests," Aron said. "Leaves are off the trees and the large nests stand out
against the sky."
Bald eagles are on the federal endangered species list as a threatened species.
According to Aron, they have been proposed for taking off that list, and it is
expected that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will remove them.
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