FAIR HAVEN With technological improvements helping volunteers keep track of the United States most iconic birds, Zoologist Robert Somes explained the “New Jersey Bald Eagle Project” to residents.
The presentation was sponsored by the Monmouth County Audubon Society, a chapter of the National Audubon Society, which is dedicated to the enjoyment and study of nature, wildlife conservation, habitat protection, and education, according to a prepared statement.
More than 15 residents listened to Somes explain the New Jersey Bald Eagle Project, on Oct. 11, at the Knights of Columbus Hall, located at 200 Fair Haven Road.
Somes is a senior zoologist with the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program. His primary projects are the Bald Eagle Project and rare insect conservation. He has worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service for nine years. Sommes has a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Studies from Stockton University and a Master’s degree in Ecology from Rutgers University. He currently works out of the organization’s Assunpink field office, according to a prepared statement from the organization.
“We have programs nine months out of the year from September to May and they are for entertainment and education and a lot of them are centered around birds because we are Audubon organization. We do also cover other areas of nature not just exclusively birds. We had [Somes] because everybody likes bald eagles and their population is growing,” Colette Buchanan said, the Monmouth County Audubon Society president.
For more than 30 years, the bald eagle has been state listed as an endangered species and is protected under the Endangered Species Conservation Act, and the Bald Eagle Golden Eagle Protection Act, according to Somes.
About 99 percent of the division is made up of volunteers whose duties include: tracking bald eagles nests, protecting bald eagles nests, banding bald eagles as well as their young, and track the eagles migration movements, according to Somes.
Somes said that he coordinates the division’s volunteers and covers Burlington to Essex County. He also covers insects statewide.
In 1970, the state had one remaining eagle’s nest located in Cumberland County. In order to increase the bald eagle population, the state came up with a recovery strategy where it collected baby bald eagles, also known as “chicks,” from Canada during the early 1980s, according to Somes.
Today, the state has more than 200 bald eagles nests. In 2015 the state had 191 nests, 150 active pairs of bald eagles, and 199 chicks produced, according to Somes.
“It really an amazing recovery in such a short period of time,” Somes said.
According to Somes, bald eagle nests are located in rural and urban areas throughout the state. Due to bald eagles being very adaptable their nests are not just found in trees, but are also found on cell towers, near people’s homes, active roadways, and transmission lines. Bald eagles eat a variety of animals that include: fish, turtles, ducks, mascot rats, chickens, eels, road kill, goose, goose eggs and even cats.
To keep track of the bald eagles, volunteers place a green band on one of the eagle’s legs and place a sliver band on the other. Each silver band contains a letter and number that the division uses to track each eagle. The division has found that the bands do not negatively effect or bother the eagles, according to Somes.
During the banding process, volunteers also take blood samples to check the eagles’ basic health. If the eagle during the banding process is found injured, the division’s medical staff cares for the eagle until it is deemed healthy, according to Somes.
In recent years, the division began attaching small transmitters to some of the eagles’ backs to better monitor their migration patterns, according to Somes.
“The thing we have done recently is we got funding to buy satellite transmitters or the ones that pings off cell towers and we put a couple of those out over the last few years and there is only a handful of them because they are pretty expensive. It really helps us see where our birds go, how they disperse, [and] what type of habitats they are using…We really get to see what features of the landscape they are using [and] what is more important to them from one habitat to another,” Somes said.
When migrating, bald eagles have traveled to Canada, Virginia and eastern Long Island, according to Somes.
“Outreach like this is great to get more people to just report information to us and a lot of times people see or observe things like a eagle carrying a stick, but don’t really know how important that is to us or know who to contact. So this helps put a face to a name,” Somes said. “It also helps recruit other volunteers to monitor the nests and do other things, because we depend on the volunteers. The more people we get educated or to inform us of things the better.”
For more information the project visit www.njfishandwildlife.com/ensp/raptor_info.htm#eagle.
For more information about the Monmouth County Audubon Society visit www.monmouthaudubon.org.
Contact Vashti Harris at [email protected].