The following statement appears in a blog posting on Blue Ridge Discovery
Center's website. I am curious about the conclusion that extensive cattle
pastures are somehow benefitting Bald Eagles??? What aspect of their biology is
benefitted by cattle pastures? This is the kind of misinformation that should
not be disseminated to the general public through non-profits masquerading as
environmental education organizations. The same author recently implied that
Golden-winged Warbler declines were due to hybridization and forest succession,
making no mention of the fact that habitat loss of forests previously occupied
by GWWAs occurred when those forests were converted to cattle pastures. It
would appear he is either naive or has a strange agenda as an educator.
Eric Harrold Hays, NC
From Virginia Society of Ornithology records research and conversation with
wildlife officers, we have concluded that this is the first documented active
bald eagle nest in Grayson County for 100 years. We have heard that bald
eagles have been nesting below Byllesby and Buck Dams, and though adjacent to
Grayson, that section of the New is in Carroll County. In general, the
increase in bald eagle sightings in Grayson has concentrated along the New,
from Fries to Mouth of Wilson. This resurgence points directly to a renewal of
healthy populations and the success of conservation efforts. “The
newly-discovered eagle nest in Grayson County is a welcome sign of the
recovery of our Bald Eagle population, nearly lost from the widespread use of
DDT decades over 50 years ago.” (Allen Boynton, formerly with the Virginia
Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, is now employed by the NC Wildlife
Resources Commission.)The nest was discovered in a somewhat remote section of
the New, with a cattle farm on one side and a steep forested slope on the
other. Grayson contains a considerable amount of wilderness areas, private,
state and national. Combine that with extensive cattle grazing lands, and a
picture of viable habitat for the bald eagles emerges.
