Farmington Bay Refuge & Bear River Bird Refuge

Has anyone been to either one in the last week or so. I was planning to drive up from Los Angeles, but it looks as if the winter has been unusually mild and the Eagle population has been down.
Appreciate any feedback

It is not a great winter for eagles around these areas this winter. Farmington Bay does not draw as many eagles now the roosting trees have mostly fallen over. The main attraction for the eagles were carp that were poisoned and I think they have changed that practice a little also so it does not attract so many eagles. To be really honest it became a big attraction to photographers and a few in the crowd created some real problems, my hunch is they changed management procedures to attract fewer eagles and resolve that issue. BRBR is still mostly frozen up just starting to thaw now, I did see 2 Bald Eagles there a week ago and 6 barn owls. I am sure you would find some eagles in either location but no big congregations of eagles. There is a heavy inversion right now a storm on Sunday may clear it out for a bit.

Scott Baxter wrote:It is not a great winter for eagles around these areas this winter.  Farmington Bay does not draw as many eagles now the roosting trees have mostly fallen over.  The main attraction for the eagles were carp that were poisoned and I think they have changed that practice a little also so it does not attract so many eagles.  To be really honest it became a big attraction to photographers and a few in the crowd created some real problems, my hunch is they changed management procedures to attract fewer eagles and resolve that issue. BRBR is still mostly frozen up just starting to thaw now, I did see 2 Bald Eagles there a week ago and 6 barn owls.  I am sure you would find some eagles in either location but no big congregations of eagles.  There is a heavy inversion right now a storm on Sunday may clear it out for a bit.

Scott, can you clarify - were the eagles attracted to poisoned carp (ie were they scavenging poisoned fish) or were the unpoisoned carp they were attracted to now gone because of poison. Neither is good as poison is involved, but having eagles eating poisoned carp could kill the eagles as well as the carp.

Thanks,
Roberta Olenick
www.neverspook.com

neverspook wrote:

Scott Baxter wrote:It is not a great winter for eagles around these areas this winter.  Farmington Bay does not draw as many eagles now the roosting trees have mostly fallen over.  The main attraction for the eagles were carp that were poisoned and I think they have changed that practice a little also so it does not attract so many eagles.  To be really honest it became a big attraction to photographers and a few in the crowd created some real problems, my hunch is they changed management procedures to attract fewer eagles and resolve that issue. BRBR is still mostly frozen up just starting to thaw now, I did see 2 Bald Eagles there a week ago and 6 barn owls.  I am sure you would find some eagles in either location but no big congregations of eagles.  There is a heavy inversion right now a storm on Sunday may clear it out for a bit.

Scott, can you clarify - were the eagles attracted to poisoned carp (ie were they scavenging poisoned fish) or were the unpoisoned carp they were attracted to now gone because of poison. Neither is good as poison is involved, but having eagles eating poisoned carp could kill the eagles as well as the carp.

Thanks,
Roberta Olenick
http://www.neverspook.com

The refuge manager purposely poisons the carp with a poison that dissipates rapidly and is harmless once the carp are dead. Then they scoop the floating dead fish up and scatter them in various spots in the refuge. I don't know for how many years they've been doing this, but the Eagles are on to it and in previous years there were many eagles in the refuge around the beginning of February. There is a new manager the last year or two and things may have changed a little. Apparently this winter has been mild in the Farmington Bay area and that contributes to fewer eagles visiting.

Thanks, Scott. Do you happen to know what poison it is?

Roberta

neverspook wrote:Thanks, Scott. Do you happen to know what poison it is?

Roberta

Most likely Rotenone.  Google "carp control" to learn about the problems caused my introduced non-native fish species in American waters.

The chemical that is used is rotenone. It is naturally occurring in many plants and was even used by indigenous people for capturing fish. In simple terms the chemical is easily absorbed by the gills and it essentially cuts of the oxygen supply. It can do a pretty good number on aquatic insects and fish, it has a half life of less than a day in most water applications depending largely on temperature. It is commonly used to control fish. Carp (a species that is not a native species in this area) are a problem in many bird refuges they disturb the bottom of the ponds impacting the vegetation and reducing the food supply and carp control is a common practice. Farmington Bay and near by management areas routinely kill the carp, I know in 2014 they elected not to do this treatment because of the number of eagles that were dying of West Nile virus that year, they did not want to create congregations of birds which may allow the disease to spread. Farmington Bay was ideally suited to attract eagles because of location, time of season, good roosting habitat, and water that opened just in time to have access to the dead fish. The roosting habitat is now gone. The eagle attraction was a good thing because it attracted a lot of people and gave them an experience that helped them appreciate nature a little more. It also created large crowds. It was like a huge parking lot of Subaru's all moving at about 3 miles an hour on the road. Unfortunately a lot of people do not understand if they get out of their car the eagles move further away which was not good for photography. Even less fortunate some of the photographers adopted rather forceful and threatening methods to address the situation. There were also a few turf flare ups between photographers. Others went as far as bringing in fish from other locations to bait the eagles in to where they could photograph them. Although it was never talked about publicly Farmington Bay was a classic example of how some hot headed and goal driven photographers can possibly destroy opportunities for all. I don't think their actions reflect the majority of photographers but many people less familiar with the culture came out of that experience with a less than favorable view of photographers. I have not spent as much time involved in that area on conservation efforts as I once did and I don't know what the current practice or strategy is. My hunch is that they have created a few carrion sites far enough from the roads to not be great for photography so they can still sponsor an eagle day and let people view the eagles without creating the circus that existed for a few year.

One thing that has not been made clear is if this chemical rotenone is harmful to the eagles, or any other wildlife in the area?

Thanks for the info, Scott.
Half life of a day still leaves half of the toxin in the environment at the end of the day. And as you state, it kills not just the target carp but also other fish, insects etc. Googling shows it to be toxic to mammals etc, just not as toxic as it is to things with gills that absorb it so readily. It maybe be a natural substance in plants, but arsenic is natural too.
I expect on the scale of evil chemicals, it is at the low end. But I can't help but wonder if a fish trap of some kind would not be a more selective method for controlling invasive carp. Any native fish could then be released live from the trap and the carp killed without affecting the aquatic insects etc at all.

Roberta

Roberta you are correct the majority of the most potent poisons occur naturally and we also process them to be several times more concentrated than in the natural state. Rotenone has been used and researched for years and while dumping any concentrated chemical into a natural system is questionable this chemical is very much on the low end of concern, it completely breaks down in less than a week. The question you ask about other techniques to manage carp is a good question. You can buy entire books on the topic. This is just one of many techniques that are used to control carp populations. Netting, trapping, water rotations and many other things are done. The bottom line is most refuges are not even a fraction of a percent of the area needed to have an intact ecosystem. By necessity they are heavily managed. The majority of the people involved in managing these areas are smart and dedicated people who work for pretty small wages. The majority of the direct money used to provide the resources to manage these areas come from hunters not photographers or birders although we all pay taxes which are also used to support these areas. Probably the best thing we can do to contribute to the improvement of the management approach is to volunteer our time and resources to helping like many hunters do. That way we can get to know the challenges and contribute to the solutions. Invasive plants such as phragmites are another major challenge for many refuges and water ways. The dike systems used to create the marshes also create highways for skunk, fox, coyote and other predators that prey on the nesting birds. There are a lot of challenges and volunteering is a rewarding way to help contribute to the solution. I would like to see more photographers volunteering. One great way to help is to allow people doing field research or involved in public information campaigns to use your images. Good images can really help communicate needed information.