Bald eagles have produced a record number of offspring in Indiana this year, a state official said Wednesday.
Twenty eaglets were counted in the Hoosier state this year, surpassing the previous mark of 17 set in 1995. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources started monitoring the nesting habits of the birds after evidence of breeding was first noted in 1988.
Nineteen nesting territories were known or suspected in Indiana during this year’s breeding season, which ran from February through early July. Of those, 15 eagle pairs were known to have laid eggs, and 11 pairs produced the 20 eaglets.
“We’re pretty confident those figures will hold up” for the rest of the year, John Castrale of the department’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, said Wednesday.
Fledglings were found in 11 Indiana counties: Brown, Dubois, Greene, Martin, Monroe, Morgan, Orange, Owen, Parke, Posey and Tippecanoe. Once the eaglets can fly, they usually disperse, sometimes ending up hundreds of miles from where they were hatched.
The mild winter appears to have helped breeding eagle pairs this year, said Castrale, a non-game bird biologist in Mitchell.
Indiana reintroduced 73 eagles into the wild in the late 1980s and the first successful nests were observed in 1991, when three eaglets were found. Thirteen baby eagles were counted last year and 15 were observed in 1996.
