Two rare bald eagles have made Hamilton their
home after facing near extinction for decades.
The eagles first nested in Cootes Paradise at
the Royal Botanical Gardens in 2009 and have nested every summer since,
although they have yet to lay any eggs.
“Hopefully one day soon they’ll have young,” Tys
Theysmeyer, head of natural lands at the RBG, said.
“The first two years they were too young. The
last two years are a little more puzzling. If they don’t have any young next
year then we must have an issue with their ability to reproduce, which is
entirely possible.”
Theysmeyer pointed to pollution as a likely
factor affecting the birds’ reproduction — it wouldn’t be the first time.
Decades ago, the pesticide DDT leached through the food chain, causing egg
shell softness and whittled down the eagle population to all but four active
nests in all of the Great Lakes by the early 1980s.
With stricter restrictions on pesticide use, the
eagle population slowly began to recover. Today, there is a growing, healthy
population of the eagles, with more than 60 nests across the Great Lakes and
the numbers are increasing every year, according to Theysmeyer.
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