There are few bald eagles to be seen along the Chilkat River, and that’s thunderously worrisome, as they didn’t show up last year, either.
We are, after all, the “Valley of the Eagles,” a motto once emblazoned across Chamber of Commerce stationery and used for decades to lure visitors here. “The largest gathering of bald eagles in the world” was our calling card, and so much more than that.
Our treasure of eagles, revealed to the world, forced the State of Alaska to reconsider its management of the Haines State Forest as a log bin. Limits were put on commercial timber harvests. After a long political battle, the state set aside 48,000 acres as the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve, as place where traditional but not industrial activities were allowed.
For the Chamber of Commerce, the trade-off went like this. Instead of logging the habitat of the eagles, the preserve would be marketed, promoted and sold to visitors annually as an attraction. People would come from around the world to behold the sight of so many of these majestic birds.
It worked. Sporting goods store owner Dave Olerud launched his American Bald Eagle Foundation to celebrate and study the eagles of the Chilkat Valley “into perpetuity,” an expression Olerud relishes. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages eagles, flew annual aerial counts in an airplane to make an official tally that once exceeded 3,500 eagles.
Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles built walking paths, kiosks, and boardwalks showing off the preserve and telling the story of the annual migration of America’s symbol to this place.
The folks at the Chamber launched an annual bald eagle festival, one of its early guest speakers Jay Hammond, the beloved Alaska governor who signed the preserve into law. The festival worked, drawing hundreds of visitors annually. They came for weeks at a time in November, a dark month of horrendous weather. An Anchorage newspaper put up a photographer at the Captain’s Choice for a month just for a few shots of eagles in sunshine.
CBS newsman Charles Kuralt came to see the eagles. The BBC came. Celebrities came. Rafting and nature tour companies advertised “eagle preserve tours” and made bank even in summer when the eagles are thin. Downtown shops sold binoculars, winter clothes, and photo equipment to fall visitors.
Until the recent return home of the Whale House artifacts, the eagles were arguably the only attraction that put our town on the world stage.
On a drive up the road Sunday, we saw fewer than 100 birds. By this time in the fall – just one month from historical peak of the eagle gathering at Thanksgiving – there should be at least 1,000 or more.
Low eagle returns happen. Unusually early and frigid winters combined with low returns of chum salmon have at times reduced the annual migration to numbers below 1,000. But a low return this year would mark the second, consecutive bust. That’s more rare. Now the prospect of a permanent downturn is daunting.
A worker at the eagle foundation recently said to me about the cancellation of the November festival: “We can’t invite people from around the world to come here if we don’t have any birds.”
There are steps the Haines Borough could take to give the community a grip on what’s happening to the eagles.
The borough could approach the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with funding to resume aerial flyover counts. It’s possible that we’re not seeing all the eagles that are here. During the years of the historic flyovers, that happened.
Due to shifts in river channels, weather and the variability of fish runs, sometimes the birds don’t congregate at the “council grounds” at 20 Mile. Sometimes they are further up the river. Sometimes they are up the Chilkoot Valley. Sometimes the eagles are there, we just can’t see them from the road.
It would pay to know what’s going on. The town has a lot of money invested in these birds.