From The National Eagle Center:
The Golden Eagle Project is please to announce the release of an adult golden eagle fitted with a GPS satellite transmitter. On the morning of November 12, 2012, researchers at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Duluth, MN captured a migrating golden eagle. Golden Eagle Project Co-coordinator and Director of Bird Conservation with Audubon Minnesota Mark Martell led a team to attach a GPS satellite transmitter and prepared the bird for release by early afternoon.
"It's exciting to be able to begin tracking a golden eagle in migration, just at the beginning of the wintering season", says Golden Eagle Project Co-coordinator and National Eagle Center Education Director Scott Mehus. "We're already tracking two birds that had been found in Minnesota and Wisconsin in the winter months. This bird offers us the chance to see whether the golden eagles seen over Hawk Ridge each fall are some of the same birds we see in the blufflands for the winter."
Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory typically counts around 200 golden eagles passing over Duluth during the fall migration season. Every January, the Golden Eagle Project conducts a Wintering Golden Eagle Survey in southeast Minnesota, western Wisconsin and northeast Iowa. Last year's survey found 125 golden eagles wintering in this blufflands area. The golden eagles currently being tracked by the Golden Eagle Project are now both in southern Ontario and moving south. More information about the Golden Eagle Project and maps of golden eagle tracking are available at
www.nationaleaglecenter.org.
This golden eagle release is part of an on-going project to better understand the range, habitat use and migration patterns of golden eagles that winter in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Golden Eagle Project is a partnership of the National Eagle Center and Audubon Minnesota with support from Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Non-game Division, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Winona District. Funding support for the Project has been provided in part by Minnesota's Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund.
The National Eagle Center fosters environmental stewardship through education about eagles and the Upper Mississippi River watershed. The mission of the Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory is to protect birds of prey and other migratory birds in the Western Lake Superior Region through research, education, and stewardship.
