Bald Eagles don’t mind the alaska’s cold weather?
Alaska trips for Bald Eagles….What is the norm?
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jadewolf
Well-known member
I find this whole thing kinda hilarious, honestly. I have a friend who lives in Homer and she says the bald eagles are basically like crows or buzzards up there. Calls them Trash Eagles. 
She sent me video just this morning of a dozen of them just hanging out at the dump, only hopping a few feet back when someone walks up to drop off their trash, then coming right back. They hang out on fences, they wander around the spit. Seems like the real challenge is just finding a place where it looks more natural and less like a trash picker.
While I'm generally a hands-off sort of person when it comes to wildlife, in a situation like that, I don't think I'd worry too much about the ethics of baiting them. They're already extremely acclimated to humans. Of course, legality is a separate issue.
There's a lot of other great wildlife opportunities up there, though. She does photography as well and has captured gorgeous shots of moose, owls and more. I'm hoping to finally come up and visit sometime in the next couple years. It looks amazing.
She sent me video just this morning of a dozen of them just hanging out at the dump, only hopping a few feet back when someone walks up to drop off their trash, then coming right back. They hang out on fences, they wander around the spit. Seems like the real challenge is just finding a place where it looks more natural and less like a trash picker.While I'm generally a hands-off sort of person when it comes to wildlife, in a situation like that, I don't think I'd worry too much about the ethics of baiting them. They're already extremely acclimated to humans. Of course, legality is a separate issue.
There's a lot of other great wildlife opportunities up there, though. She does photography as well and has captured gorgeous shots of moose, owls and more. I'm hoping to finally come up and visit sometime in the next couple years. It looks amazing.
Maljo
Well-known member
Feeding, baiting, blinds, calls, captive animals: we do what it takes to capture the image without harming the subject.
The difference is really the intent of providing food. Most of the time bird feeders are provided by people with an interest in bords whether or not there is any photography taking place. Tossing fish out from a boat to attract eagles for photos is baiting solely for the purpose of photography, and without photographers would not take place.
In addition, feeding animals non-native food is another distinction related to owls. Even in winter, they feed on specific food that is found in the area. there is no such thing as an Artic White Mouse in the wilds of Minnesota - just farmed mice raised to feed animals or for scientific work - mice that have never been faced with hunting for food or avoiding predators.
This sums up why feeding/baiting it is such a debate. Because the real argument isn't about what the impact is on the animals. It's about human ethics/morals and the inherent differences. Which means that it's an endless, senseless debate. Many people frame it as being about the animals but there's no hard science behind those arguments. Which means it's about their own opinions.
Ironically there is one bit of hard data about harm to the animals that I've never seen brought up in the debate. It regards fatal consequences of baiting owls. There's no arguing that it kills the mice.
Years ago, the residents of Dutch Harbor called Bald Eagles "Dutch Harbor Pigeons."I find this whole thing kinda hilarious, honestly. I have a friend who lives in Homer and she says the bald eagles are basically like crows or buzzards up there. Calls them Trash Eagles.
While I'm generally a hands-off sort of person when it comes to wildlife, in a situation like that, I don't think I'd worry too much about the ethics of baiting them. They're already extremely acclimated to humans. Of course, legality is a separate issue.
There's a lot of other great wildlife opportunities up there, though. She does photography as well and has captured gorgeous shots of moose, owls and more. I'm hoping to finally come up and visit sometime in the next couple years. It looks amazing.
A number of photographers place feeders up to attract birds, especially hummingbirds, and then remove all but a few when they want to photography them. Yes this is good for migrating birds but also enables the photographer. Ditto for water, especially in the desert areas.
Could there be a black mouse in the wilds of Minnesota, Michigan, Canada, ..? Would that be okay? Is the argument based upon the color of the mouse? Or is it because the food is an animal vs seed? Does it matter if the feed is alive versus previously killed? Some people object to using live animals as bait but it is okay if the animal was previously killed. If you are going to feed the animal anyway, does it matter what form the food takes? Is feeding a recognizable animal any different than feeding it piece that look like they could have been purchased at a grocery store?
I don't have any answers, at least beyond what I am comfortable doing, and I am not prepared to say this is okay and this is not (for other people).
Larry Shuman
Well-known member
I have been in Haines twice. Once in 1996 and in 2002 when I had my new Sigma 800mmF:5.6 AF. There are several places that you can find the eagles. Attached are 3 images that I got in both those years. For 1996 and 2002 I was there
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for 2 weeks in November
You're right about the lack of proper research on the topic. I've seen a couple of articles about bird feeders - something widely supported - and even then it turns out that the research is species specific and limited to a small area. It turns out that feeders benefit specific species - and the success of those species can crowd out other species or lead to increase in disease in other species.
Many animal species are remarkably adaptable. Look at peregrine falcons. We find that they are perfectly comfortable nesting on high rise buildings in cities and feeding on slow, fat pigeons as they raise their young. Coyotes are found in most large cities - feeding mainly on rats and other rodents.
Larry Shuman
Well-known member
In Haines, Alaska in November the last Salmon run is in the Chilkat River. That is along the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve. As I said I photograph the eagles along that preserve. The river does not freeze in November. You do not need bait along that Preserve so a lot of eagles are there.They will fight each other for a fish or many will sit on a branch.
Cold doesn't seem to matter but they follow the food. They mostly vacate interior Alaska due to all of the water freezing over. So no fishing possible. And the waterfowl leave. So two main sources of food are gone. Many of the estimated 3000+ birds that show up for the salmon run in November/December in the Chilkat River are on their way south. Next stop is Washington state for the last salmon runs of the year. Still plenty of birds hang out along the coast and out in the Aleutian Islands.
I don't think you could bait them there if you tried. So many salmon for them to eat. It's interesting that they fight over fish when there are so many available.
Interesting how much cold weather the Eagle can endure. I was told that they fly off Conowingo when it gets too cold. But Alaska? What protects them from the blistering cold winds?
Hello. I don't live in Alaska any longer but was a permanent resident for 20 years while in the service. Here is my eagle advice.
Plan a trip to Alaska and take your camera gear. When you get there look up. You will have found your eagles. Go to any water front and look up and you will see flocks of seagulls running off eagles the way fighter planes pursue bombers. They compete for food. Both crapped on my car at work daily.
If you want easy pickings for eagles go to places like this.
There is a bonus to going to a landfill in Alaska (and also upper Michigan or Wisconsin or Minnesota). You will likely get some great black bear opportunities. Landfills are critter magnets.
Bald eagles are Alaskan robins and vultures rolled into one and they are everywhere. They eat the easiest food they can find and the landfills are literally full of them.
I don't wish to upset any guides but paying anyone in Alaska to show you where the eagles are is like climbing Mount Everest and paying extra for the guide to point out the snow to you when you get to the top.
Haines is a nice place so check this out.
Alaska Bald Eagle Festival | Haines, Alaska
This festival in Haines celebrates the peak of the largest congregation of eagles in the world each November
www.alaska.org
Here's the deal with baiting eagles with fish. Spend your money hiring a fishing charter or go on a head boat with a group. Get out your camera and get ready. Catch a fish. Throw it back if it's something you don't care to eat. Grab you camera and wait for the eagles hovering over the boat to swoop down to snatch the fish you threw back. Release the shutter.
I have eagles hovering over my boat on the Maumee river in Ohio when I fish now. There are lots of them overhead when you fish in Alaska.
When thinking about the baiting issue, keep in mind that Alaskan waters are full of commercial fishing boats and scavengers follow them around just waiting for them to throw things into the water. Scavengers are one natures way of cleaning the environment and eagles are big time scavengers.
Here's an example, when I first arrived in Alaska the hunting rule worked like this. Tourist hunters either had to take the hide or the meat as a minimum when they killed bears. I think they had just ended the practice of someone killing things like bears and moose or whatever and cutting the head off to take home and leaving the rest. Shortly after I got there they made the rules much stricter to limit trophy hunting.
But the reality was that any carcass left is picked clean very quickly. Leaving a skinned bear carcass laying on the beach back then sort of amounted to feeding time at a zoo and the eagles are big time part of the process. My point is that there is tons of dead stuff in the water on any given day and eagles eat it. Throwing out herring is not going to hurt an eagle unless it's on a hook and you are casting it for a fish and he grabs it before it hits the water. Which does happens.
Of course no serious conservation minded hunter or subsistence hunter or fisherman wastes any part of the animal they kill to survive. Subsistence hunting is common.
Here are my left over deer tags from a "small game" license in Alaska. I couldn't buy one until I was officially an Alaskan resident for a year. It came with the 7 deer tags and 4 black bear tags and if I remember right cost 10 dollars.
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There are the more well known river runs of salmon such as the Chilkat River eagles gathering that everyone sees on documentaries. Any river with any salmon in it during a salmon run is going to have more eagles than you can count.
The baiting issue is whatever it is but every time you drop a crust of bread, throw back a fish or accidently drop food on the ground in Alaska there will likely be seagulls and eagles swarming to be the first to eat.
Bald eagles have the reputation of being the world greatest predators but given a choice prefer road kill and dead or nearly dead fish.
Don't be too persuaded by sales pitches to pay anyone to find eagles for you. Just go to Alaska and look up and if you want to know the local eagle hot spot ask a local.
Depending upon how you travel to Alaska, another opportunity is going via the Alaska Marine Highway system.
Alaska Marine Highway System - The Alaska State Ferry
Official Site of the Alaska State Ferry. Up-to-date schedules, online reservations, fares, trip ideas and community information.
dot.alaska.gov
You will see albatross, eagles, orcas, porpoise, whales jumping out of the water and bears on the beach as you travel either from the Seattle area or Prince Rupert on the Canadian/Alaska border. If you have the time travel to Alaska on the state ferry system. If you fly you will miss the greatest part of the Alaskan experience.
In case you wonder about my credibility in telling you this, I did two tours on ships based in Ketchikan. The first was aboard the Coast Guard 180 foot buoy tender Laurel working buoys, light houses and other aids to navigation and doing search and rescue from Ketchkan all the way up to the Aleutian Islands. After the Laurel I cross decked over to the CGC Cape Romain a 95 foot partol boat and did a tour doing fisheries and drug enforcement and search and rescue operations. The only sad part is that digital cameras didn't exist when I was there.
I hope this helps answer and create more questions about visiting Alaska for you. Please forgive the bad grammar and misspellings
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Eric, you are absolutely correct about owls and non native food etc. Your point is very well taken given that almost everything that is caught fishing where I currently live is an invasive species that came from somewhere else in the seachest or hold of a foreign ship entering the Great Lakes. Jumping carp, gobis, zebra muscles and algae bloom are just an average day on the water and all fit what you describe to one degree or another. They all came here from someplace else. Oh yeah, I almost forgot sparrows and starlings the two most invasive species in America.
Forgive me for using your post as springboard to post my last remarks about what I think is a massive nonissue. I really, really apologize about using your post for this. My Alaskan nerve has been jabbed with a sharp poker by this topic. This is not personal against you or anyone else but it's time for a reality check.
Herring are native fish and they are everywhere in Alaska and most of the rest of the oceans. Nobody brings them up from the states to bait eagles with them. When schools of big fish eat little fish the water erupts with the little fish trying to escape. The food chain includes eagles, seagulls and countless other birds and animals attacking herring or shad or whatever from above while the bigger fish eat them from below. It's happens continuously in oceans all over the world. It's part of the cycle of life.
Birds following boats waiting for food is also a normal part of the food cycle and happens all over the world.
When schools of fish are feeding on schools of smaller fish the water surface is alive with bait fish jumping out of the water to escape being eaten. Is throwing a herring into a school of herring to try to get the bird closer to your location unethical. Forget the photography aspect, what if you just cherish watching the elegance of an eagle diving and taking the gift that you just offered it? Is it disrepect or an reverent interaction with nature? If there were no camera involved or fee paid would it be okay if one were watching eagles take their offering and praying for the planet?
I am going to finish and get far away from this topic by putting on my proud Alaskan hat. Even though I no longer live there I will always be a proud Alaskan and consider it my home. I think an education in why Alaskans are Alaskans at this point in the topic might be helpful.
99.99999 percent of all Alaskans reverently respect wildlife of all varieties. Alaskan's reverence for the bald eagle is on a par with a reverence reserved for gods. There's a good chance that a guide taking a photographer on his boat to take pictures may be a Tlingit or Tsimshian or Haida tribal member or related to someone who is.
Next time you look at a totem pay attention to what is the highest feature on the pole. The word Ketchikan means "thundering wings of an eagle" in Tlingit. You will not find totems with dollar signs on top but most will have an eagle with thundering wings at the very top. They have been around longer than any camera but have been painted and idolized for centuries. When someone who worships the eagle throws an eagle a herring they are not disrespecting it or trying to harm the planet in any way.
Don't worry about Alaskans harming or disrespecting the bald eagle. Worry about the disrespectful visitor who was born and raised someplace where trees only exist to be cut down, everyone is afraid of the dark and lives their entire life never seeing the Milky Way stretch across the sky over their homes because of coast to coast street lights destroying the night and nature only exists to be destroyed in the name of progress. Worry about them changing the values of people who already have it right and fouling a pristine world with toxic values.
Not just in Alaska but also places like Africa where the fields look like parking lots with wagon trains of rovers packed with tourists surrounding nearly extinct wildlife taking pictures of other vehicles becasue of the crossfire. The worlds a sad place to be an animal.
I think Alaskans can handle the problem of deciding if it is wise to feed herring to an eagle they probably have named and known since it was hatched to get a closer look at it without people from the lower 48 telling them what's right or wrong. I guarantee that the average Alaskan has far more respect for nature and the bald eagle than most anyone else on the planet. It's a real respect that's existed since their have been native Alaskans.
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I think we can all stop worrying about ANY Alaskan disrespecting or harming bald eagles. If anyone goes there who hasn't already been there I think they'll get my point before they return to whatever world they live in now.
Enough of that...you can take away my soap box and burn it now
.As usual please forgive all the misspellings and typos.
Case in point...a visitor to my suburban front yard a few hours ago. I have peregrines that hang out in my arbor vitae and kestrels hanging out on my tv antenna regularly waiting to ambush my feeders. Whenever I hear an especially loud thump on my picture window on a really reflective sunny day it's usually a redtail or peregrine who paid too much attention to the bird it was chasing and didn't see all the UV safety warning decals on the window.
For anyone interested in providing research data regarding these issues I offer this. The website speaks for itself.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology—Home
We believe in the power of birds to ignite discovery and inspire action. Join us on a lifelong journey to enjoy, understand, and protect birds and the natural world.
www.birds.cornell.edu
Check out Project FeederWatch and they will send you a packet of material to begin providing data for the program.
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jadewolf
Well-known member
Just to add one more thought to some of the excellent points made here, I think the species in question and the specific scenario also plays a large role in the ethics of baiting or pishing. For extremely sensitive species, I always err on the side of minimal interference. Baiting human-habituated eagles in Alaska doesn't strike me as a egregious breach of ethics, but playing back calls to a highly endangered and easily stressed honeycreeper in Hawaii would be a different matter. Same for baiting bald eagles in situations where they are not habituated to humans and where baiting might alter their current feeding patterns and behavior. Situation and context matters. I figure the best approach is educating oneself about one's photographic subjects, including their local behavior in the population you are aiming to shoot, and then making a judgement call based on that information and personal ethics.
Bob, when I started this thread, it certainly was not my intent to criticize any individuals or groups, and if I did I apologize. And I did not intend on running down the feeding/baiting rabbit hole. Having never been on a guided photography trip, I admit that I have little to no knowledge of what is the ”norm” for eagle trips to Alaska, hence my question. I just know that here in Arizona that the subject of feeding to attract wildlife can take on a different perspective.Eric, you are absolutely correct about owls and non native food etc. Your point is very well taken given that almost everything that is caught fishing where I currently live is an invasive species that came from somewhere else in the seachest or hold of a foreign ship entering the Great Lakes. Jumping carp, gobis, zebra muscles and algae bloom are just an average day on the water and all fit what you describe to one degree or another. They all came here from someplace else. Oh yeah, I almost forgot sparrows and starlings the two most invasive species in America.
Forgive me for using your post as springboard to post my last remarks about what I think is a massive nonissue. I really, really apologize about using your post for this. My Alaskan nerve has been jabbed with a sharp poker by this topic. This is not personal against you or anyone else but it's time for a reality check.
Herring are native fish and they are everywhere in Alaska and most of the rest of the oceans. Nobody brings them up from the states to bait eagles with them. When schools of big fish eat little fish the water erupts with the little fish trying to escape. The food chain includes eagles, seagulls and countless other birds and animals attacking herring or shad or whatever from above while the bigger fish eat them from below. It's happens continuously in oceans all over the world. It's part of the cycle of life.
Birds following boats waiting for food is also a normal part of the food cycle and happens all over the world.
When schools of fish are feeding on schools of smaller fish the water surface is alive with bait fish jumping out of the water to escape being eaten. Is throwing a herring into a school of herring to try to get the bird closer to your location unethical. Forget the photography aspect, what if you just cherish watching the elegance of an eagle diving and taking the gift that you just offered it? Is it disrepect or an reverent interaction with nature? If there were no camera involved or fee paid would it be okay if one were watching eagles take their offering and praying for the planet?
I am going to finish and get far away from this topic by putting on my proud Alaskan hat. Even though I no longer live there I will always be a proud Alaskan and consider it my home. I think an education in why Alaskans are Alaskans at this point in the topic might be helpful.
99.99999 percent of all Alaskans reverently respect wildlife of all varieties. Alaskan's reverence for the bald eagle is on a par with a reverence reserved for gods. There's a good chance that a guide taking a photographer on his boat to take pictures may be a Tlingit or Tsimshian or Haida tribal member or related to someone who is.
Next time you look at a totem pay attention to what is the highest feature on the pole. The word Ketchikan means "thundering wings of an eagle" in Tlingit. You will not find totems with dollar signs on top but most will have an eagle with thundering wings at the very top. They have been around longer than any camera but have been painted and idolized for centuries. When someone who worships the eagle throws an eagle a herring they are not disrespecting it or trying to harm the planet in any way.
Don't worry about Alaskans harming or disrespecting the bald eagle. Worry about the disrespectful visitor who was born and raised someplace where trees only exist to be cut down, everyone is afraid of the dark and lives their entire life never seeing the Milky Way stretch across the sky over their homes because of coast to coast street lights destroying the night and nature only exists to be destroyed in the name of progress. Worry about them changing the values of people who already have it right and fouling a pristine world with toxic values.
Not just in Alaska but also places like Africa where the fields look like parking lots with wagon trains of rovers packed with tourists surrounding nearly extinct wildlife taking pictures of other vehicles becasue of the crossfire. The worlds a sad place to be an animal.
I think Alaskans can handle the problem of deciding if it is wise to feed herring to an eagle they probably have named and known since it was hatched to get a closer look at it without people from the lower 48 telling them what's right or wrong. I guarantee that the average Alaskan has far more respect for nature and the bald eagle than most anyone else on the planet. It's a real respect that's existed since their have been native Alaskans.
493 Tlingit Totem Pole Images, Stock Photos, 3D objects, & Vectors | Shutterstock
Find Tlingit Totem Pole stock images in HD and millions of other royalty-free stock photos, illustrations and vectors in the Shutterstock collection. Thousands of new, high-quality pictures added every day.
I think we can all stop worrying about ANY Alaskan disrespecting or harming bald eagles. If anyone goes there who hasn't already been there I think they'll get my point before they return to whatever world they live in now.
Enough of that...you can take away my soap box and burn it now
As usual please forgive all the misspellings and typos.
Our thoughts, beliefs, and values are based partly upon our experiences. What might be an issue for someone could be a normal course of business for someone else in a different situation. It’s not right, or wrong…..just different.
Your posts were certainly informative to me and I appreciate you posting them here.