[va-bird] 2005 VA Eagle Survey Underway

On Saturday 26 March, 2005, Mitchell Byrd and Bryan Watts from the Center for 
Conservation Biology completed the first round of bald eagle flights for 
coastal Virginia.  Ten days of aerial surveys were conducted during the month 
of March to cover all of the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay, lower tidewater 
(including Back Bay), the lower Delmarva Peninsula, Kerr Reservoir, and several 
inland reservoirs.  This first survey round documented 437 occupied breeding 
territories.  This number will be revised following the productivity flights in 
May.  The breeding population has increased 10% annually since 1977 when a low 
of 33 pairs was documented.
 

The 2005 survey is the 50th consecutive year that breeding Bald Eagles have 
been surveyed in coastal Virginia.  The survey was initiated by Jackson Abbott 
in 1956 as a volunteer ground survey.  Aerial surveys were initiated in 1962.  
Jackson Abbot and Fred Scott conducted aerial surveys throughout the 1960s and 
1970s.  Mitchell Byrd took over the survey in 1977.  Bryan Watts has conducted 
the survey since 1992.

 

The 2005 survey is being funded primarily by the Virginia Department of Game 
and Inland Fisheries and the Center for Conservation Biology with additional 
support from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Defense, and 
the Army Corps of Engineers.

 

The Center for Conservation Biology is always interested in information on the 
location of nesting pairs, particularly in the Piedmont and mountain regions of 
the state.  We may be contacted by phone at 757-221-1645 or through the 
information provided on our website, http://www.ccb-wm.org 

                                                                                
     

                                                                                
                                                - Bryan Watts


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posted by:

Mike Wilson
Center for Conservation Biology
College of William and Mary

757-221-1649

mdwils@xxxxxx
                                                                                
           

                                                                                





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