As part of a national survey effort, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Buffalo Field Office (BFO) is seeking volunteers to assist with the 2017 Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2017.
Participants are asked to count eagles along standard routes in order to identify population trends. The standard routes are distributed across the Powder River Basin and will follow public roads.
Volunteers are required to register for survey routes. For more information or to register, contact Charlotte Darling at (307) 684-1045 by Friday, January 6. Public training meetings will be held during the week before the survey to discuss survey methodology, eagle identification and to distribute survey materials.
During last year’s survey, ninety volunteers counted 547 eagles throughout the Powder River Basin, including 363 bald eagles. A total of 3,337 eagles have been counted since surveys of the Basin began in 2006.
The national survey was established in 1979 by the National Wildlife Federation to develop a winter population index of bald eagles in the lower 48 states and to identify previously unrecognized winter habitats. Over the years the national survey has been coordinated by BLM, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and is currently coordinated by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Wildlife professionals from BLM, U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and National Park Service (NPS) coordinate local efforts across Wyoming. A trend analysis paper using survey results from 1986-2010 was published in the September 2015 issue of The Journal of Raptor Research.
For more information on the national program visit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Bird Initiative web site at https://corpslakes.erdc.dren.mil/employees/bird/midwinter.cfm.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management
