Coastal Commission Requires Feds to Continue Funding Catalina Island Bald Eagle Program 


In a unanimous 11-0 vote, the California Coastal Commission determined on December 14 that the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) must continue to fund the Catalina Island Bad Eagle Recovery Program as part of the Montrose Settlement Restoration Program (MSRP) Final Resolution Plan (FRP). NOAA had previously determined that the lack of success and problems with the failure of Bald Eagle egg hatchings associated with continuing DDT pollution should lead to the program's abandonment. The Coastal Commission, on the other hand, ordered that NOAA redouble it's Bald Eagle efforts and fund the program for at least another ten years, or until such time as the Montrose DDT pollution is no longer destroying America's national bird. 



Catalina Island bald eagles
 

In the 1950s and 1960s Montrose Chemical Co. dumped hundreds of tons of toxic DDT down municipal storm drains in Los Angeles, where it traveled through outfall pipes and created a Mt. Everest of toxicity in coastal waters offshore of Palos Verdes, California.

The environmental impacts of the DDT have been devastating, and nearly caused a large number of marine mammals and birds- including bald eagles, dolphins, pelicans and others - to go extinct in southern California. DDT pollution amongst fish and marine organisms persists today despite DDT having been banned in the 1980s.

Over the past 25-years researchers have been gathering bald eagle eggs from nests on Catalina Island (30 miles offshore of Los Angeles Co.) and assisting in the hatching of those eggs, then returning the eggs to the wild. The reason is that high levels of DDT persist, and the bald eagle eggs are too thin to be able to be hatched in the wild.

The Catalina Island Bald Eagle Recovery Program is run by the Institute for Wildlife Studies and the Catalina Island Conservancy and is by many measures a huge success. Over 100 eagles have now been hatched and returned to the wild, and about 25 of the raptors remain today on Catalina Island. Other eagles from the program have slowly fanned out throughout the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary area, helping to restore environmental balance to those environments.

Bald eagles are an apex predator, and a very important part of the southern California environment whose presence impacts the entire ecosystem and food chain. For example, without bald eagles, brown eagles moved into the Channel Islands and decimated rare indigenous Island fox populations. For thousands of years bald eagles and Island fox had lived harmoniously, and the fox had no idea that the brown eagle would prey upon it.

For a variety of reasons, including a very popular public education program involving over 60,000 visitors annually, the Catalina Island Bald Eagle Recovery Program is well regarded.

However, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), together with their state agency trustees, is charged with overseeing the $25 million dollar environmental restoration trust component of the Montrose DDT litigation funds, and they aren't satisfied with the bald eagle recovery program at Catalina. The fact that bald eagle eggs still cannot hatch in the wild led NOAA to decide to abandon the program and it's $250,000 per year cost.

For NOAA's explanation, go to http://www.darp.noaa.gov/southwest/montrose/baldeagles.html

The Coastal Commission rejected NOAA's determination on December 14, finding that the bald eagle is America's national bird and a keystone species in the southern California food chain that must be protected from extinction until such time as it can reproduce naturally, or at least for the next ten years.

Commission Chair Meg Caldwell called the Catalina program "corrective justice" and said that for the Commission to adopt NOAA's position would be to concede defeat and abandon hope for bald eagle recovery in southern California. Caldwell said that so long as a chance exists for bald eagle recovery, the Commission should demand it, especially given the small cost of the Catalina program.

Commissioner Sara Wan agreed, and criticized NOAA's plan for a $3.5 million paper study on the Santa Cruz Island bad eagle population, when the $250,000 annual Catalina program is yielding great results- and birds. "As you succeed on Catalina, so will you succeed in the northern Channel Islands," Wan said.

Commissioner Dave Potter then moved that the Commission require funding for the Catalina Island Bald Eagle Recovery Program for at least the next ten years, and Commissioners Padilla, Shallenberger, Burke, Wan, Caldwell, Kruer, Reilly, Potter, Neely, Clark and Secord voted 11-0 to approve the application conditioned upon NOAA funding the Catalina Island eagle program.

For more information about The Institute for Wildlife Studies, go to Catalina Island Eagle Project.

For information regarding Catalina Island and the Catalina Island Conservancy, go to www.catalinaconservancy.org

For news of the Commissions decision, go to LA Times. 

Posted: Wed - December 28, 2005 at 02:17 PM          

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