The only bald eagle nest on Santa Cruz Island is now a lonely place, one that webcam viewers were delighted to monitor just a few weeks ago.
That was when two newly hatched chicks gave nature lovers across the nation the chance to witness the regrowth of a declining population on this set of islands off the Ventura County coast.
But that fascination lasted only a few days. The chicks died soon after hatching, leaving viewers to console each other on an Internet chat board hosted by the Nature Conservancy, a worldwide conservation organization.
"What a sad day for all of us," a viewer known as Cumbrian posted on the chat board. "Sometimes life is unfair."
Webcam viewers had been watching the nest since the mother eagle – K-26 – laid the first egg of the year in February. Half the birds hatched in that nest have died in the past four years, including the latest death on April 14.
The Nature Conservancy launched the webcam in 2006 to enable online visitors to witness wild eagle nesting behavior – including the birth of the first wild-born bald eagle chicks on the Channel Islands in more than 50 years – according to the group's Web site.
Since then, viewers have seen several devastating moments.
In 2007, viewers learned a chick they had watched grow until it could leave the nest was killed by a car. And last year, another eagle swooped down and knocked two chicks out of the nest, but the youngsters were later captured and rehabilitated.
Bald eagles have a high mortality rate in the their first year of life, but once they get past that, they generally have a good chance of survival, said Dave Garcelon, president of the Institute for Wildlife Studies based in Arcata, Calif. The institute has been helping to repopulate the eagles on these national park islands after years of exposure to pesticides devastated their populations.
There have been 61 bald eagles released in Channel Islands National Park in recent years. Of those, about 30 remain, and most of them have reached the age – at about 5 years old – when they are starting to mate and build nests.
That means many more chicks could hatch in years to come, but for now webcam viewers are still coping with the latest tragedy.
"There has been an outpouring of emotion," Garcelon said. "When people are so into watching birds and something like this happens, they take it pretty hard."
Biologists do not know what killed the recently hatched chicks. Garcelon said there could be a multitude of reasons, including disease or contaminates. A necropsy has been ruled out because they are rarely able to determine the cause of death and it is difficult to retrieve the young from the nests without disrupting the parents, he said.
Meanwhile, eight bald eagles have hatched this year on nearby Catalina Island, marking the first time eggs have hatched naturally on that island without biologists assisting the nesting process or incubating eggs, Garcelon said.
Information from: Ventura County Star, http://venturacountystar.com