November 11, 2012, interview with David Hancock

We have stated for years that the winter gathering of bald eagles at Harrison Mills, the Chehalis Flats, is the world's best kept conservation secret.  Possibly the secret is out of the bag!  Perhaps we Canadians with our fellow US visitors are in danger of loving the eagles to death.

This coming weekend, November 17th - 18th, will be our 17th annual Fraser Valley Bald Eagle Festival and we have been striving to use these eagles to promote the wise use of these incredible Chehalis - Harrison waterways and their incredible wildlife.  This site is on the doorstep and vulnerable to the largest human population concentration in British Columbia -- Greater Vancouver metropolis.   Obviously our message is getting out -- but we (I) have only heard a few negatives.  Now with our Live Streaming Video Cams coming in from daylight to dark each day we are beginning to see what some observers have been warning about.  The Chehalis - Harrison flats, where the eagles feed and loaf, while surrounded by steep forests beyond the busy boat and fisherman traffic of the Harrison River running down the east side of the valley and the heavily human occupied subdivisions of the east side of the valley, seemed isolated and protected by the shallow waters of the large alluvial gravel outflow out on the flats itself.  But now with our cams recording what is taking place on the flats it is obvious that the eagles are suffering greatly from recreational human activities. 

The Chehalis - Harrison Confluence Flats   -- houses Canada's richest salmon river and  the world's largest gathering of bald eagles .. but ... some challenges. 

In 2012 large numbers of bald eagles started to arrive at the Chehalis Flats very early in November.  By the first week of November 736 eagles were counted on the Flats between the CAM Tower and the Chehalis River mouth to the north - a distance of about 500 meters.  Probably over 2000 were already in the Chehalis - Harrison flats  area and resting in the nearby trees.  Normally the big numbers of eagles don't arrive until late November and early December -- peaking by mid December. The eagles leave when the carcasses disappear, wash away or are eaten out, by the end of January or February.

 

Today (Nov. 2) I went out to the Harrison River to assist in an interview with the Old Growth Forest Alliance (broadcast by Global TV) to talk about the importance of a small patch of old growth Douglas Fir and Western Cedar to wildlife in general and specifically to our eagles. Thanks to Ken Wu of the OGFA for championing our bald eagle night roost trees. The Echo Lake old growth forest is also the night roost, probably the largest eagle night roost known, and is located beside the Chehalis - Harrison Flats -- where our underwater cam views the salmon and the two cams of the Harrison Mills eagle nest and the two Tower cams (about to come on live) all view the feasting eagles. Hundreds, to perhaps more than a thousand eagles, use this cirque and the adjacent hillsides old growth forest for their night roost during these fall and winter nights.