A breeding pair of bald eagles discovered in California's Channel Islands is raising hopes for a return of the iconic raptors to one of their historic native ranges, conservationists say.
The spotting of a nesting pair at San Clemente Island means the species has returned on five of the chain of eight islands off the California coast, where poisoning by DDT wiped them out in the 1960s.
Working its way through the food chain, the pesticide caused thinning of bald eagle eggshells, which then easily broke.
The pair on San Clemente Island brings the total to 16 breeding pairs and 14 eagle chicks observed along the string of islands, National Park Service officials say.
"This news is very gratifying," Peter Sharpe with the Institute for Wildlife Studies said in a park service release. "I expect to see bald eagles return to all eight of the Channel Islands within a few years which will mark yet another milestone in their successful recovery."
Sharpe has been working in the bald eagle recovery effort for 18 years.
The origin of the pair on San Clemente pair has been traced to the nearby Santa Catalina and Santa Cruz islands, conservationists said.
The 10-year-old female, born in 2004 in Juneau, Alaska, was released onto Santa Cruz Island during that same year in a reestablishment program for bald eagles in the islands.
The 7-year-old male was hatched in a Santa Catalina Island incubation facility.
Sixty-one eagle chicks were released in the Channel Islands between 2002 and 2006, and the 2006 natural hatching of a chick at Santa Cruz Island was the first there in more than 50 years, researchers said.
Bald eagles mate for life and can live as long as 30 years, raising hopes the breeding pair at San Clemente could produce chicks for many years, although no chicks have as yet been observed in their nest, the researcher said.
The return of bald eagles is just one of several success stories involving bird species in California, as brown pelicans and peregrine falcons have also made slow but steady comebacks in the state.
Only the California condor is still suffering the effect of the long-banned DDT, scientists said.
Now that bald eagles on the Channel Islands have had successful natural hatchings, they are not longer being bred in captivity, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Jane Hendron says.
"We're just going to let nature take its course," she says.
