Weather and prey availability drive eagle success

Bald eagle chicks wait on the nest for their parents to bring them more food.

Successful nesting conditions for bald eagles requires sufficient availablity of food resources to keep the chicks fed and weather conditions that keep them warm and dry.

In this paper, we analyzed decades of data from Kenai Fjords National Park, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Katmai National Park and Preserve, and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve to assess bald eagle nesting and nesting success in the context of weather and other environmental conditions. We found that weather conditions (spring temperature and spring precipitation) and the the abundance of salmon in early runs were the most important to success.

We looked at whether or not the 2014 north Pacific marine heatwave had an impact and found that some of the effects (such as disruption in the food web) did, indeed, negatively impact eagles as alternative food sources were less available.

Lastly, we looked at the spatial patterns of occupied nest locations and their success. From that analysis, we learned that additional factors improved nesting success:

• water clarity, that is, clear-water streams rather than turbid, glacial-fed streams, made it easier for eagles to spot salmon and increased the availability of food;

• nearby bear fishing activity also increased food availability because eagles had more salmon carcasses to scavenge on the beaches where bears were feeding; and

• nearby seabird colonies increased the availability of another food source for eagles, as did booms in the hare cycle.

Together these findings indicate how variation in weather and marine resources can impact nesting bald eagles in AK and provide insight into the drivers of their population dynamics.

The effects of spatiotemporal variation in marine resources on the occupancy dynamics of a terrestrial avian predator

Abstract

Identifying how species respond to system drivers such as weather, climate, habitat, and resource availability is critical for understanding population change. In coastal areas, the transfer of nutrients across the marine and terrestrial interface increases complexity. Nesting populations of bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) along the Pacific coast of North America, although terrestrial, are largely dependent on marine resources during the breeding season and therefore represent a good focal species for understanding the linkages of nutrients between terrestrial and marine systems. Due to their location, coastal eagle populations are susceptible to a variety of climate-induced perturbations, from both land and sea. The northeast Pacific Marine Heatwave (PMH) of 2014–2016 had wide-ranging impacts on the marine ecosystem and provided an opportunity to explore how marine conditions can impact terrestrial wildlife populations. We used a spatially explicit multistate occupancy modeling framework to analyze >30 years of bald eagle nest occupancy data collected in four large national parks along a coastal interior gradient in Alaska, USA. We assessed occupancy state in relation to weather conditions, salmon abundance, access to alternate prey resources, and the PMH event to help elucidate the factors affecting bald eagle occupancy dynamics over time. We found that occupancy probability was higher in areas where prey resources were concentrated (e.g., near seabird colonies, where bears facilitate access to salmon carcasses). We also found that the probability of reproductive success was higher during warmer, drier springs with higher-than-average salmon abundance. After the onset of the PMH, success declined in the areas most dependent on non-salmon marine resources. These findings confirm the importance of spring weather conditions and access to salmon resources during the critical chick-rearing period, but also reveal that marine heatwaves may have important secondary effects through a reduction in the overall quantity or quality of prey available to bald eagles. Given ongoing warming at high latitudes and the expectation that marine heatwaves will become more common, our findings are useful for understanding ongoing and future changes in the transfer of nutrients from marine to terrestrial ecosystems and how such changes may impact terrestrial species such as bald eagles.

Schmidt, J. H., H. A. Coletti, K. A. Cutting, T. L. Wilson, B. A. Mangipane, C. N. Schultz, and D. T. Schertz. 2024. The effects of spatiotemporal variation in marine resources on the occupancy dynamics of a terrestrial avian predator. Ecosphere 15(11): e70078.