USFWS proposes increased bald eagle take

[Laura Bies]

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released revised limits for how many bald eagles can be killed by industry and others under incidental take permits issued by the agency pursuant to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. 

In 2016, the agency used eagle count data from 2009 to develop a nationwide population estimate of 143,000 bald eagles. Recently, the agency conducted additional surveys and employed other methods to develop a new population estimate of bald eagles, with a population size of 316,708 individuals. The new estimate only accounts for birds in four out of six established 'eagle management units'. Due to financial and logistical concerns, the current bald eagle population in Alaska was not estimated. Additionally, the population in the southern portion of the Pacific Flyway is small and patchily distributed, making aerial surveys impractical there. For these two areas, the take limits will remain at the 2016 levels until the USFWS can conduct additional analyses. The USFWS has determined that while some of the increase in the estimates of nationwide population size from 2009 to 2019 is due to improvements in counting methods, the majority of the increase is likely due to population growth, at around 10 percent per year.

In 2016, the take limit was set at 6 percent of the population. The new take limit will be 9 percent. However, the actual number of birds taken is generally lower than the set limit. Actual permitted bald eagle take was 490 in 2020. Also, the take limit is not based on the overall population estimate itself but on the 20th quantile of the probability distribution.

The changes in population size combined with the new take rate will result in an annual maximum take limit in the four EMUs of 15,832 bald eagles. The new limits will be effective as soon as the notice is published in the Federal Register. 

The USFWS published rules regarding eagle incidental take in 2009 and revised them in 2016. Last year, the agency announced an effort to streamline the process of obtaining a take permit. 

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