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The Nature Conservancy in Illinois Press Releases
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Chris Anderson
Email: canderson@tnc.org
Phone:(312) 759-8017 ext. 30
Cell: (312) 218-0186

Bald Eagle Hatched at The Nature Conservancy’s Emiquon Preserve

FULTON COUNTY, May 31, 2006 – A pair of bald eagles has produced the first eaglet at The Nature Conservancy’s Emiquon Preserve since the 7,100-acre property was purchased more than five years ago.

Staff members and volunteers at Emiquon had been monitoring an eagle nest found high in a cottonwood tree near a tributary of the Illinois River for several weeks but observed only a pair of bald eagles tending the nest. A scientist who works for the Conservancy’s China program was shown the nest recently while touring the preserve and noticed the characteristic dark head of an immature bald eagle.

“I asked for my binoculars back,” said Doug Blodgett, who works at Emiquon as director of the Conservancy’s Upper Mississippi River Floodplain Initiative. Blodgett said he was very pleased after he too spotted the eaglet. “It’s great news.”

Eaglet at Emiquon
The eaglet at Emiquon © John Riley
Blodgett said bald eagles previously have constructed nests at Emiquon including a pair that built a nest on the same branch of another tree five years in a row only to have each nest destroyed by wind. The branch broke off last year.

“I was sad to see the nest fail but it made me happy to know they wouldn’t waste another year on that limb,” said Blodgett who suspects that Emiquon’s first eaglet is the offspring of that pair. “There’s no way to know for sure.”

Blodgett said he is certain that Emiquon will have additional success stories as it is transformed from cropland to a mosaic of backwater lakes, shallow-water wetlands, wet prairie, savanna and bottomland hardwood forest. “There’s no doubt that as the restoration proceeds we’ll see an increasing diversity and abundance of wildlife here,” he said.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific.