Eagle Fest returns to Lock and Dam
<span>EDITOR'S NOTE: To see a video from the Eagle Fest event, see the Herald Tribune's Facebook page or website.</span>
<span>Delayed a month due to flood cleanup, the Kaskaskia Eagle Fest brought crowds back to the Jerry F. Costello Lock and Dam on Saturday.</span>
<span>The event, which includes presentations from representatives of the World Bird Sanctuary and Natural History Education Company, seeks to educate attendees about the eagle species and its habitat in the region.</span>
<span>"The port district supports programs that help our environment and the eagle is part of our environment," said Ed Weilbacher, general manager of the Kaskaskia Regional Port District. "We're not just shipping on the river, we look at the holistic view of the whole river from recreation to wildlife habitat and the eagle program can help people understand that."</span>
<span>"They're in the wild, you see them along the river and it gives people an appreciation and understand of what the eagle is."</span>
<span>KRPD is one of a large number of partners who coordinate the event each year. In addition to the presentations, activities include spotting scopes, tours of the Lock and Dam and interpretive walks along the Kaskaskia River Confluence Trail.</span>
<span>"What's really neat is when you see eagles on their own nest," Weilbacher said. "Oftentimes, when you go to a program, you don't get to see that.</span>
<span>"So we're seeing things that are not just on stage, they're real, they're in the wild."</span>
<span>According to the Kaskaskia River Project, the bald eagles in the region migrate down from the Great Lakes and central Canada and are typically seen from December through March.</span>
<span>Some are also local nesting birds and live in the region year-round.</span>
<span>"This morning when I came in, there was an eagle sitting on a log on the river," Weilbacher said. "So that's kinda neat to see that."</span>
<span>Trina Whitener, a naturalist with the World Bird Sanctuary, educated attendees on the different species of eagles - there are 62 - and how the Sanctuary treats 400 birds per year with a 44 percent release rate.</span>
<span>Whitener spoke on how mass shooting by humans and the use of the insecticide DDT played a role in harming the bald eagles' livelihood and diminishing their numbers.</span>
<span>Their population numbers went from an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 during the early 1700s to less than 500 pairs by the early 1960s.</span>
<span>"It worked its way up the food chain to top predators," Whitener said. "Bear it bald eagles, peregrine falcons, the brown pelican, even the American alligator was affected by DDT.</span>
<span>"It didn't affect these animals directly, but interfered with how they produce calcium in their diet and caused them to lay eggs with a very thin eggshell."</span>
<span>Whitener said some eggs came out without a shell at all.</span>
<span>"It was just a weird blob that would come out and immediately break," she said. "When the adults would sit on the egg, they would crush them and they were accidentally killing their babies."</span>
<span>The U.S. banned the agricultural use of DDT in 1972 and in 2007, the species was removed from the endangered and threatened list in 2007.</span>
<span>The event was delayed from its usual February date due to flooding from the Christmas Day weekend storm that brought up to 7.5 inches of rain to some parts of Randolph County.</span>
<span>"The cleanup for this isn't fast," said Courtney Wilson, assistant operations manager for the Lock and Dam. "It's tractors and fire hoses."</span>