Eagle Creek Dam Indiana Blue Herons in Spillway Pics

It was still dark when a caravan of cars rolled out of Miami State Recreation Area headed toward a bald eagle roost on the Mississinewa River downstream from the dam that impounds Mississinewa Lake.

Fueled with homemade cinnamon rolls, coffee and hot chocolate, the group had risen early to take part in the 14th annual Sunrise Eagle Watch.

Once in position on a bridge over the river, socially distanced and masked observers scanned the branches of trees for bald eagles as dawn touched the overcast sky.

Don Knight/CNHI News IndianaFlying: A bald eagle flies over the Mississinewa River below the dam Jan. 9. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has several bald eagle programs scheduled for January and February.

The first pair of eagles were visible on a sycamore branch over the river. The dim light illuminated their dark bodies, topped with white-feathered heads, in contrast against the white bark of the sycamore.

As the sky brightened, several more birds could be seen in trees on a bend in the river.

There have been documented sightings of more than 150 birds at the Mississinewa roost, with colder weather adding to their numbers.

The Army Corps of Engineers operates three dams — the Mississinewa, Salamonie and J. Edward Roush — to control flooding on the upper Wabash.

Water flowing through the dams' spillways keeps the river from freezing, attracting Eagles to scour the waters for fish.

"We not only have birds that normally live around here all year long, but we also have birds that come south from areas that are more frozen like Canada, Wisconsin, Minnesota," said Teresa Rody of the Department of Natural Resources' Upper Wabash Interpretive Services.

"The more everything is frozen up in other locations, the more birds that we see in these areas," she said.

Don Knight/CNHI News IndianaPerched: A bald eagle perches in a tree next to the Mississinewa Dam spillway on Jan. 9. Bald eagles were reintroduced to the state at Monroe Reservoir in the 1980s. Nesting pairs have been documented in 88 of Indiana's 92 counties over the past five years, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

Conservation success

The bald eagle is a conservation success story in Indiana.

Before their recent recovery, the last known nest in Indiana was reported in 1897. Eagles were gone from the state by 1900, and they continued to decline across the country because of habitat loss, shooting and the use of DDT.

The pesticide was running off into waterways where it was absorbed by fish eaten by eagles. The pesticide interfered with reproduction by weakening eagle egg shells.

The 1962 book "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson detailed the eagles' plight and eventually led to change.

Don Knight/CNHI News IndianaFlying: A bald eagle flies over the Mississinewa River below the dam on Jan. 9. Once vanished from Indiana, today more than 300 mating pairs nest in the state.

DDT was banned in 1972, and the following year the bald eagle was one of the first species protected by the Endangered Species Act.

As part of a nationwide effort, eagles were reintroduced to Indiana starting in 1985. Over four years, 73 eaglets from Wisconsin and Alaska were eventually released at Lake Monroe.

The lake was chosen because eagles will return to the area where they were raised to breed. Conservationists hoped they would reestablish a population at Lake Monroe, explained Allisyn-Marie Gillet, DNR state ornithologist.

The first successful nest was documented in 1991.

"Now we see so many more just because they've spread out from these reintroduction locations," Gillet said. "That's mainly because there are so many of them, and there's lots of good available habitat for them."

The first nest in the area of the upper Wabash reservoirs was documented in 2005.

"At that point, we had the northernmost nest that was documented in the state," Rody said.

Successful pairs will often return to the same nest each year to build onto it and hatch more eggs.

"There have been some evidence of bald eagle nests just being used year after year after year to the point where they became two to three tons in weight," Gillet said.

Bald eagles were removed from the federal Threatened and Endangered Species List in 2007, and in 2008 Indiana moved the national bird from an "endangered" species to a species of "special concern."

With more than 300 breeding pairs in the state, the Natural Resources Commission removed eagles from the special concern list in 2020.

While delisted, bald eagles, there nests and eggs are still protected by federal laws such as the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

Keep your distance

The federal guideline for keeping your distance from eagles is 330 feet, about the length of a football field, for low-impact activities like hiking or kayaking. When it comes to noisier pursuits, like riding an all-terrain vehicle or hammering nails, the guideline is doubled to 660 feet.

"Each individual can contribute to the conservation of all eagles by letting them have their space when they're breeding," Gillet explained.

DNR programs, like the Sunrise Eagle Watch, involving bald eagles are popular with the public.

"There's still a lot of people out there who remember when seeing even one eagle was a huge deal in Indiana," said Jill Vance, Monroe Lake interpretive naturalist. "It hasn't been that long ago where we had no eagles in the state."

One of Rody's most memorable experiences as an interpretive naturalist was taking a woman in her 90s to the Salamonie Dam to see an eagle for the first time.

"That was on her bucket list," Rody recounted. "She got out of the car and used a walker to hold on to while she leaned into the spotting scope and just was thrilled. ... To be able to give her that experience, it was very neat."

No Indiana state tax dollars have been used to nurture the bald eagle population or for the recovery of other bird species — such as osprey, peregrine falcons and barn owls — still on the Indiana endangered or special concern list.

Instead, donations to the state's Nongame Wildlife Fund secure matching federal dollars.

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Source: https://www.tribstar.com/news/indiana_news/bald-eagles-wiped-out-in-early-20th-century-now-thrive-in-indiana/article_6aaa214a-8d8f-51bb-888f-3178e370c7b2.html

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