Takshanuk Watershed Council science director Stacie Evans counts bald eagles through her spotting scope by the Chilkat River at 21 Mile. Takshanuk’s weekly ground counts show eagle numbers at the Council Grounds have rebounded after a historically low 2020.
The council grounds along the Chilkat River are once again animated with bald eagles, after a season of historic quiet.
Stacie Evans, science director at Takshanuk Watershed Council, tallied a season-high of 626 birds around Haines on Nov. 9, compared to 279 on the peak day last fall. “I’d say they bounced back,” Evans said. “The numbers aren’t soaring this year. But they’re reasonable. They’re within the parameters of what we’d expect to see during a normal year.”
The Alaska Bald Eagle Festival was canceled for the second year in a row due to the pandemic, but visitors still came for the birds. Evans said she has been inundated with messages from photographers and filmmakers eager to capture the spectacle. Billionaire businessman David Rubenstein recently visited the valley to view the eagles.
The birds usually congregate most densely in November for a late chum salmon run, a precious winter food source. An upwelling of warm groundwater where the Tsirku River joins the Chilkat delays freezing and draws the fish to spawn. The run was abysmal in 2020-biologists aren’t sure why-and far fewer eagles showed up.
“There were times last year when it was so quiet at the council grounds that it felt like the gears had stopped turning. I remember telling people that it was like being in a snow globe; still beautiful, but cold and inanimate,” Evans wrote in an October email to the CVN. “It was spooky to get a glimpse of what the landscape will be like if salmon disappear.”
But the chum are running again this year, and many of the hungry birds came, too. About a dozen eagles arranged themselves like gargoyles in a cottonwood tree just south of the 21 Mile parking lot at about noon on Monday. “Last year, there were like two here,” Evans said as she turned into the pullout. “This is awesome.”
Evans tallies birds once a week from September through December at 12 sites, including Chilkoot Lake, Mud Bay and from 4 to 30 Mile along the Haines Highway. A spotting scope helps her identify individual birds on gravel bars in the Chilkat River and in the thick cottonwood stands on both banks. Where a naked pair of eyes might see five or six birds, Evans through her scope counts 75.
While this year’s daily maximum – 626 birds – is up significantly from last year, it’s still well below the historic average. From 1988 through 2000, the number of eagles counted on the day of greatest abundance each year averaged 1,530. From 2009 through 2020, with a few years skipped, that number was 909.
While the ground counts shouldn’t be construed or interpreted as population estimates, Evans said they are helpful as an index of general trends. They clearly show that eagles are not congregating at the council grounds in the vast numbers that they once did.
Cheryl McRoberts, executive director of the Alaska Bald Eagle Foundation, said the foundation canceled its festival this year due to COVID-19 and declining eagle counts. It might no longer be true to advertise Haines as a place to come see 3,000 or 4,000 eagles, McRoberts said. Still, she said, “We’re not doing away with it. It just wasn’t right again this year.”
Aerial surveys would be needed to determine whether the eagles simply are dispersed across the valley or whether the valley’s population has declined. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formerly conducted both ground and aerial surveys in the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve but stopped in 2000 for budgetary and administrative reasons. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist told the CVN earlier this year that there’s no indication that eagle numbers in Alaska or Southeast Alaska are declining. Takshanuk Watershed Council took over the ground surveys in 2009, leaving a nine-year gap in data. The nonprofit organization is looking into using a drone to do aerial counts next year.
Evans said her biggest concern at this point is a decline in salmon and that the eagles are an “ecosystem indicator species.” “We’re certainly concerned about any wildlife population decline. But there’s no indication that eagle populations are declining at all. What we’re probably documenting is a different dispersement of eagles. They weren’t congregating here in 2020 because of the lack of salmon.”
Evans said the decline in some salmon stocks is “likely due to myriad factors-a death-by-a-thousand-cuts situation.” She mentioned four factors that may be contributing to the decline: climate change, competition between hatchery and wild stocks, freshwater habitat degradation and overfishing in the past.
Since 2016, Takshanuk Watershed Council has been monitoring water temperature in the Chilkoot and Chilkat rivers to establish a baseline and help predict the effects of climate change on the watersheds. A 2020 study in Southcentral Alaska determined that higher water temperatures correlated with decreased survival of Chinook salmon.
The state estimates this year’s chum salmon escapement in the Chilkat drainage to be about 170,000 fish, within the target range, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Nicole Zeiser. The total run estimate is expanded from the number of fish caught in the Chilkat River fishwheels, which was 2,589 this year.
Last year, which was the only time since 1999 the Chilkat chum run fell below the state’s escapement goal, only 348 fish were captured in the fishwheel.
When asked if she worried that Haines would lose its title as the bald eagle capital of the world, Evans sounded optimistic. “No. As long as there’s salmon, we’ll hold the title.”