Catalina Island Conservancy

LIVE cams below by Institue for Wildlife Studies. Simply click on the nest name to go to the nest's page and larger video. Works best with Firefox or Chrome. For more information about the IWS, click here. Click here to view the world's only multiple view eagle cameras.

Two Harbors, Santa Catalina Island, California

West End, Santa Catalina Island, California

Nine Chicks Hatch on Catalina Island

In the spring of 2011, nine bald eagle chicks hatched naturally in five nests on Conservancy-stewarded lands on the Island. This is the same number of chicks that hatched in 2010. Bald eagle chicks hatched naturally on Catalina for the first time in 50 years in 2007, thanks in large part to the efforts of Conservancy partner the Institute for Wildlife Studies (IWS) which has worked for more than three decades to restore the species to Catalina and other Channel Islands after. Eagles disappeared from the Channel Islands in the 1960s after years of DDT dumping in the San Pedro Channel contaminated fish and other eagle fare and made their egg shells too thin to be viable, unaided.

One chick in a nest at Middle Ranch died about a week after hatching. The eight remaining chicks are prospering in nests at Two Harbors, the West End, and in the Seal Rocks and Rattlesnake nests.

For a number of years, IWS researchers collected the fragile eggs, hatched them offsite, and returned chicks to the Catalina nests. The organization began leaving eggs in nests in 2007, when two chicks hatched naturally on Santa Cruz Island.

Update: At this time (7/14/2011), all of Catalina's bald eagles have fledged, resulting in eight new juvenile eagles for the 2011 season. All in all, another very good year. If you're patient, you might still see these youngsters make a webcam appearance over the next couple of weeks. After that, they'll be off making their way in the world.