White-headed raptors with white tails were once lost in Indiana, but now more than 100 bald eagles can be found hovering over Hoosier waterways. \nDepartment of Natural Resources staff reported that 50 bald eagle pairs in 2004 are Indiana residents, despite threats that stem from the effects of human population growth on natural environments. Two decades ago, in fact, bald eagles were extinct from the Indiana landscape as they had been for about a century. \n"We are in a state that has a very high population density (of people)," said John Castrale, bird biologist for the Indiana Fish and Wildlife Department. "Development conflict along lakes and rivers seems to threaten bald eagles -- both are vying for the same spot."\nThe last recording of an unassisted Hoosier bald eagle nest -- eaglets naturally born and raised in the wild without the aid of humans -- before recent Indiana Department of Natural Resource attempts to reintroduce the bald eagle to the state's land among rivers and lakes came in 1897. Recent IDNR efforts helped raise 73 bald eagles at Monroe Reservoir between 1985 and 1989, with the goal of establishing five nesting pairs of bald eagles in Indiana by 2000.\nThe success of the reintroduction program is highlighted by the state's care and treatment of Indiana's formerly lone-resident bald eagle: #C52.
#C52, Indiana's most famous bald eagle\nU.S. Forest Service personnel removed a male eaglet from a nest on Couverden Island, Alaska, July 24, 1988. Doctors estimated the bird to be 43 days old, according to a pamphlet from the Patoka Lake Visitor Center in Birdseye, Ind. \nDelta Airlines transported #C52 to Indiana a few days later, where he joined eaglets #C43 and #C44 in an artificial nest in Cell-A of the Lake Monroe Hack Tower July 27, 1988. \nNatural resources department staff noticed #C52 struggling to fledge his right wing Aug. 27. Shortly thereafter, the bird was transported to Minnesota's Raptor Rehab & Research Center. Test results indicated #C52 suffered from a genetic defect in his right wing, thereby deeming him "unreleasable" because he can never fly, said visitor center staff. \n"When I was asked to be a secondary handler, I was elated and excited," said Maria Able-Crecelius, an interpretive naturalist and #C52's handler throughout his career as an Indiana icon at Patoka Lake. "At about three months old he would have been urged to leave the nest by his parents. With him unable to fly with a wing in a fixed position, he would have died from starvation or died trying to fly from the nest."\n#C52, a by-product of bald eagles before him who struggled for decades on the brink of extinction, joined the Pakota Lake center Jan. 23, 1989.
An American symbol\nBenjamin Franklin labeled the bald eagle "too lazy to fish for himself" and "a rank coward" in protest of the Second Continental Congress's 1782 proposal of the bald eagle as America's national symbol. Franklin nominated the wild turkey instead -- "a true original native of America ... a bird of courage," he wrote. \nAt the beginning of the 20th century, Americans from farmers to anglers complained of the bald eagle's vulture-like attack on their livestock and fishing livelihoods. National legislation in 1917, as a result, offered a bounty for the birds' scalps, which resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 bald eagles across the country until 1940.\nAmerica, in addition, seemed to engage in incidental chemical warfare with its national symbol during the Cold War, when the agricultural pesticide DDT plagued the bird's aquatic food chain and nearly erased the bird from the U.S. landscape.\nThroughout the 1960s, eagle experts estimate only a few hundred bald eagle pairs still existed anywhere in the lower 48 states; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in symbolic response, labeled the bald eagle a "national endangered species" on July 4, 1976.
Home in the heartland\nCastrale said the Hoosier bald eagle population should continue to increase in the immediate foreseeable future.\n"We should certainly reach 100 bald eagle pairs (in Indiana), but after that, it should tail off -- sort of a 'S'-shaped curve when we deal with wildlife populations," he said. "If anyone wants to go out and see a bald eagle, they can. You couldn't do that two decades ago ... I think bald eagles have evolved over time to put up with more human disturbance than they used to. You need to still give them space -- they need to feed, serve their resources."\nEagle experts estimate about 40 percent of all young bald eagles, after only two to three months of life, perish during their first flight from the nest. Of the surviving 60 percent of young bald eagles, half die during their first winter from starvation and hypothermia.\nBald eagles might live about 15 to 20 years in the "wild," eagle experts estimate, if the birds can survive utility wire electrocution, gun shot wounds, automobile windshield collisions and contaminated natural resources.\nAble-Crecelius, #C52's handler, said Department of Natural Resources policy does not treat wild animals as pets. She said all of #C52 necessities are taken care of by wildlife personnel, such as food, safety and regular veterinarian visits. Able-Crecelius said IDNR personnel follow the bird's natural diet -- 20 percent of which consists of squirrel and occasional water fowl.\n"#C52 is Patoka's bald eagle, so we will not attach another name to him," Able-Crecelius said. "I think the bird has wild tendencies to do things in many ways he cannot do. He looks for danger and food opportunities. There is also a connection with the wild animals, eagle communication. He vocalizes to other bald eagles to stop by."\nThanks to the support and concern for bald eagles from individual Americans such as Able-Crecelius, the bald eagle was reclassified "threatened" in 1995. Today, eagle experts estimate 6,000 bald eagle pairs call nests in the lower 48 states home -- Hawaii claims to have none and Alaska claims to support more than 30,000, including 3,000 to 4,000 within a four-mile stretch of one particular Chilkat Eagle Preserve waterway.
Future of Indiana's bald eagles \nSince the beginning of bald eagle introductions into Indiana in the late 1980s, the IDNR boasted 26 "active" bald eagle nests throughout the state in 2002; 50 nests were reported last year.\n"In general, reintroduction programs have been a success across the nation," said biology professor Susan Hengeveld. "The Indiana DNR has done a great job bringing bald eagles back to the state ... Half of my students have never seen a bald eagle; I wish they would stop and look around, be more aware ... It's wonderful to see something so free and impressive."\nAble-Crecelius said the real reason #C52 resides at Lake Patoka is for community educational purposes. She estimates more than 50,000 Indiana residents and guests have visited with him since he became a resident Hoosier in 1989.\n"People just love to see the bird," Able-Crecelius said. "Each day and year is just marvelous with folks coming in and feeling connected to nature. The journey and adventure of the bald eagle continues."\n-- Contact City & State Editor David A. Nosko at dnosko@indiana.edu.
