Tag: NYSDEC

• Mature bald eagles are numerous across the USA today. There are reaosns why.
• Nature is as nature is, sometimes ruthless and uncaring. Volunteers and trained staff can help balance the imbalance when it happens. Read the story. 

By Forrest Fisher

No, not rock, paper, scissors! This was a serious story that ended well. In the hard, cold winter in Dunkirk Harbor, a historical protective eastern Lake Erie harbor located in Southwest New York. It was the year after the warm water discharge of the Dunkirk Power Plant shut down that I received a desperate phone call from a humble lady who was serving as the volunteer coordinator for a group called Messenger Woods. The group is a large volunteer Conservation Organization in Western New York that has tasked itself with helping nurse injured outdoor critters back to health at their Holland, NY facility. They also share their wildlife care processes at numerous home-care satellite locations in the Western New York area. It was on a 3-way phone call with a long-time NYSDEC biologist who was asking if my outdoor fishing friends and I might know of a way to find some minnows for feeding the half-starved Merganser Ducks dying in Dunkirk Harbor. I was careful to explain that everything from the Niagara River in Buffalo to Lake Erie in Ohio was frozen solid. The harbor had frozen over too, with the power plant closure, and the waterfowl birds could not feed on their usual minnow diet – which had been found there for decades annually. “The other concerning issue,” the biologist expressed, “Is that the some of the members at the Northern Chautauqua Conservation Club near the harbor had counted a total of 27 bald eagles sitting around the harbor and decimating the dying duck population.”

It was not pretty, but nature does as nature does.

Of course, this occurred at a time when no one was allowed to net minnows because of Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS). However, the ducks could eat them and survive with no problem. Tough birds. As the conservation management groups (New York State Department of Environmental Conservation – DEC) did not want the disease to spread, the uncertified Lake Erie minnow curfew was on. Perch fishermen had to use certified minnows (emerald shiners) from a tested source.  It was costly and labor intensive – fishing efforts fell far away from normal fishing days on the water. Yet, on this day, we received official permission to catch minnows in any manner for the sole purpose of helping these starving waterfowl survive.

It was a race against time.

Sometimes we need to think outside the circle, we keep hearing from managers everywhere. So we did. We used chainsaws to cut large block holes in the ice, then used a home-made circular minnow net to drop down and raise quickly to bring the minnies up. With pounds of minnows and multiple 5-gallon buckets, many birds were saved. We did this for a few weeks. It was quite an eye-opener to realize how many minnows one Merganser Duck can eat in a day! The ducks were doing well in a few weeks and were all eventually released.

The real question I had for the DEC was simple. What about the Eagles? Will they be OK without this unexpected new food source of helpless ducks? The Eagles did OK, too.

In February 2025, DEC Wildlife staff received a report of a Bald Eagle banded in New York photographed alive and well in Georgia. This bird was rescued as a hatch-year male from the nearshore waters of Lake Erie in Chautauqua County in May of 2021, likely having fledged from a nearby clifftop nest. The bird underwent surgery for a fractured humerus at Cornell University’s Janet L. Swanson Wildlife Hospital before being transferred to Messinger Woods Wildlife Care and Education in Holland, NY for rehabilitation, where it fully recovered. On Aug. 18, 2021, DEC Wildlife staff banded the eagle, and on Sept. 19, 2021, staff at Messinger Woods released it near where it was originally rescued. This successful rehabilitation is a testament to the effectiveness of our conservation efforts.

In February 2025, DEC received a report that this eagle was alive and well in Georgia. Staff from Birds Georgia, a chapter of the National Audubon Society, photographed the bird in October 2024 as it perched on a sand dune along the Cumberland Island National Seashore. While it is not unusual for an eagle to migrate south for the winter, we can’t be sure where exactly this bird has been since its release in 2021. It may stay in Georgia or migrate north each year.

Wildlife staff perform the task of banding eagles to help gather valuable information on movements, ranges, survival, and mortality. Each bird receives two bands, one on each leg: a state-color band with a field-readable alphanumeric code and a silver federal band with a unique nine-digit number. If this eagle had not been banded, we would have never known if it survived or where it went. Many thanks to the folks at Birds Georgia for reporting the band and to Cornell Wildlife Hospital and Messinger Woods for their invaluable contribution in nursing this bird back to full health!

Messinger Woods is dedicated to promoting community awareness, education and instruction, involvement, understanding, appreciation, and acceptance of our wildlife to conserve it. To co-exist and protect each other, our natural surroundings, and all the inhabitants of our earth by education. They promote quality care and medical attention for debilitated wildlife in a professional hospital setting, with the goal of increasing successful wildlife releases.

Visit them at https://www.messingerwoods.org/. To help effortlessly, you can also logon to https://Amazonsmile.com and choose Messenger Woods as your charitable organization. At no cost to you, Amazon will donate 0.5 percent of what you spend with them. Pretty cool. Thank you Lord for life-saving volunteers.

Gotta love the outdoors.