Brown bears aren’t the valley’s only wildlife dining at the dump.

Six or more of 12 bald eagles from the Chilkat Valley tracked by researcher Rachel Wheat are feeding in landfills, especially between January and March. “Eagles love feeding on landfills. We get points where they just, basically, hang out there,” Wheat said during a presentation at the Alaska Bald Eagle Festival.

A favorite landfill is in Prince Rupert, B.C., where one of her birds was photographed by a worker. Besides a colored tag around an ankle, each bird carries an antenna and a solar-powered transmitter “backpack.” Readings of eagle locations come each hour.

Wheat started trapping and tracking birds here in 2012. She’ll be gathering information as long as the transmitters last, up to five years.

To date, her study suggests eagles from this area range widely, particularly during the “shoulder seasons” of spring and fall, in contrast to birds in the Lower 48 that tend to move in the same patterns year to year.

“Most eagles from this area have distinct summer and winter habitat areas, but there is less consistency in where those birds travel in the fall and spring. They can be all over the place. I imagine that’s related to food availability,” including runs of anadromous fish like salmon and migratory fish like eulachon and herring that occur at different times of year, Wheat said.

Travel distances vary widely between males and females and between nesting and transient birds, Wheat said. At the low end, a nesting female flew 1,635 miles in the year starting November 2013, while a transient female flew twice that distance. At the high end, one immature male bird flew 8,224 miles in a year.

“He flies all over the place. He’s actually fun to watch,” Wheat said.

On average, males log up to 5,000 miles per year and females about 3,000, Wheat said, a figure perhaps due to female dominance in acquiring food. Females weigh an average of 13 pounds, compared to 10 pounds for males.

“Females are big and bossy and they’re probably better competitors for food. Males have to travel farther to eat,” Wheat said. Also, immature eagles log more miles than mature ones.

On most days, however, eagles only fly about two miles, Wheat said. “They sit around a lot. They’re lazy. Most days they sit on their butts.” Eagles are particularly sedentary in winter months. “Just around March, they go crazy,” heading off to transient food sources, she said.

Male eagles trapped in Haines have been recorded near Chitina and Prince William Sound and deep in the Yukon Territory, Wheat said.

Not all the birds in the study return to the Chilkat River every year. Wheat said eight of the 12 birds in the study had returned to the Chilkat by the time of this year’s eagle festival.