Bald eagle no longer endangered in New Jersey, state officials say

Saying the bald eagle has made a remarkable recovery throughout New Jersey, state officials announced this week that they are seeking to remove the raptor from the endangered species list.

They note that there was only one nesting pair in the state in 1970, and continuing into the 1980s, in a remote part of Cumberland County. As of last year, there were 267 nesting pairs in the state, of which 255 laid eggs.

“This is really significant in terms of identifying a true success story for the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and our ability to recover species,” said Dave Golden, the DEP’s assistant commissioner for fish and wildlife.

The most recent state report on bald eagles said that 34 new pairs alone were found in 2023, with 23 of those in South Jersey, mostly along the Delaware Bay in Cumberland and Salem Counties as the biggest strongholds.

“For the past 40 years, our biologists have been working really hard on the recovery of the bald eagle,” Golden said.

The DEP is taking public comment through Aug. 24 on the proposal to remove the bald eagle from the endangered list.

Pennsylvania has already removed the bald eagle from its endangered or threatened list, but it is protected under the state’s Game and Wildlife Code.

Indeed, the bird’s recovery isn’t just regional, but nationwide. It was removed from the federal government’s endangered species list in 2007. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service still monitors the birds through a 20-year monitoring period that ends in 2027. And the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act still remains in effect to protect nest and roost sites for bald eagles.

In New Jersey, the bald eagle will now be categorized as a species of special concern. It is also listed as a nongame species, meaning it cannot be hunted.

Kathy Clark, chief of the DEP’s endangered and nongame species program, said that lone pair of bald eagles in the 1970s struggled to raise young because of the long-term effects of the synthetic pesticide DDT, which was banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1972. DDT became notorious for accumulating in the fish that eagles ate, causing the birds to lay thin-shelled eggs that could not withstand incubation.

Efforts to restore the bird began in earnest in New Jersey in the early 1980s.

“It didn’t seem that long ago to me that there were there was a single nest in New Jersey,” Clark said. “We watched it very closely.”

For seven years, Clark said, eggs from nests where DDT was not widely used were removed, artificially incubated and brought back to a site in Cumberland County.

In addition, young eagles were brought in from Canada, where they were not endangered. About 10 chicks were brought in annually and banded so they could be tracked, and released in Cumberland County.

“Now, to say that we have eagles nesting in every county in New Jersey is something I never could have believed at the time,” Clark said. “We had an idea of the population New Jersey could support, and that was just blown out of the water.“

Growing efforts to protect the habitat of the bald eagle also helped, officials said.

Because the bald eagle will be listed as a species of special concern, officials will continue to monitor it and its habitats for threats, such as overdevelopment.

Leon Green-Tkacenko, a doctoral candidate in ecology and evolution at Rutgers, calls the bald eagle’s comeback a “really incredible recovery” and says the state’s delisting from the endangered list makes sense. Green-Tkacenko, who also teaches ornithology, or the study of birds, credits state officials, nonprofit groups, environmental laws and public “buy-in” as key factors.

“It’s one of conservation’s greatest success stories,” Green-Tkacenko said.