An HWF policy on sick eagle chicks specifically our SR current challenge
Let's hope all improves. However, there is a stated policy that we will not be accessing the tree to see about helping a chick in distress. The one exception is if the chick has some kind of obvious human-inflicted challenge. Then, as we saw some years back in Sidney when the chick was caught up in one of the 3 fish lines that everybody saw across the nest earlier in the season, then that seemed a reasonable exception. We are lending a hand to disrupt the natural flow of events because we humans caused the problems, and the risk of losing continued nesting at this site was acceptable to the landowner and government policy for the tradeoff of possibly saving the chick.
As you will recall the adults certainly finished raising the chicks -- the two not caught in fish line and the one we released from the fish line but left in the nest as it was not impaired. And while all 3 chicks were fledged, the parents, the day following the chick's being unhooked from the line and released back into the nest immediately started to build a new nest a kilometer away. Now this worked out well but in many cases, including the Sidney case, the eagles moved a long ways away and to another person's property. Many people would accept some natural disaster, as happens at almost EVERY wild nest, when only one chick out of the two eggs makes it, as an expected reality, is ok. The exception of the human caused challenge was not just acceptable by most of our viewers but also by the Wildlife branch. I too thought this the reasonable exception. If not, since we know that in the wilderness of BC generally one chick dies in most nests, we should be going into all nests and taking out the extra egg to raise in captivity. Why one nest and not all nests? By the way, removing 1 egg from each of the last 1 or 2 Whooping Crane nests in the whole world for captive rearing is why we have whooping cranes today. So the option is a good one under stressed circumstances but not practical on private property or when the species is at least holding its own. The challenge, as I see it, is to keep optional trees to hold the nests and not lose more nesting options. And as many of you know, humans climbing into nests, in spite of helping, often results in the eagles abandoning that nest. The SR nest tree has been saved from total elimination by creating an artificial structure in a tree that would not hold a natural eagle nest in this sea of housing subdivisions. Would they be able to find another suitable tree in their territory? Not likely.
As we have seen with Ma in Delta 2, where she has survived two broken legs, these eagles have incredible powers of healing. Let's hope this little guy is another one of the survivors -- and is stronger for it! But I appreciate all the good thoughts about climbing the tree for a rescue.
Cheers
david hancock
Hancock here: an HWF policy on sick eagle chicks specifically our SR current challenge
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