Eagle Nest Update
Community campaign picking up steam, almost 17K signatures on petition to save the nest
Since first writing about the eagles’ nest and UBC’s plans to cone it a local resident began a campaign to save the nest. Claire England, who has been observing the nest for years from her nearby home, took the initiative to start a petition. That petition (as of August 30, 2022) has almost 17,000 signatures.
Since the start of the petition a number of news sources have run stories.
News Coverage of Petition and Eagles’ Nest
The first story was in the Vancouver Sun and focussed on the lack of peer reviewed scientific evidence supporting obstructing an eagle’s nest to move the birds to a human made substitute. Disclosure, I was quoted in VanSun article:
Charles Menzies, a local resident and professor of anthropology at UBC who has written extensively about the planned relocation of the eagle family to a human-made nest about 200 metres away, expressed doubts about the university’s plan.
“There’s no certainty that this will actually work,” he said, noting that the artificial nest was nothing like the original.
“I grew up in Prince Rupert and worked commercial fishing for my teenage years, 20s and 30s,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of eagle’s nests and I’ve never seen one halfway down a tree that is embedded in that kind of growth.”
Next news story was a 6pm local news feature on Global News. Reporter Paul Johnson came to campus, filmed the nest and spoke with Claire England about concerns over conservation. The story included some drone footage (have to say, curious as to whether that was compliant with protected species regulations) and a couple streeters with UBC students. Also cited, but not shown on camera, was a statement from UBC saying they are following the rules.
This was followed by City News with another on campus interview with Claire about the nest and problems with development too close to the nest. Reporter Monika Gull highlights Polygon’s highrise condo development’s proximity to the eagles’ nest and quotes from UBC Campus and Community Planning’s website which claims UBC is following the rules. Also mentioned is that the petition had exceeded 16,000 signatures.
Late News Addition
Moments after we published this story, Vancouver is Awesome (ViA) came out with their story on the nest and the petition. The ViA story gives a fairly thorough overview of the issues. Disclosure: I am quoted in this item:
“It is really hard to know what effects coning the existing nest will have," anthropologist and professor Charles Menzies tells V.I.A. "There is very little published literature documenting the technique. The one publicly reported coning of a nest on the Trans Mountain pipeline route in Burnaby seems to have worked at the time, but we don’t know how effective it is in the long term.”
…
Menzies weighed in on the likelihood of development plans changing or stopping due to public opposition.
“If the developer thinks they have sufficient public and government support to continue they will continue without changing their development plans," he tells VIA in an email. "If they think it might affect their bottom line then I suspect they will make changes. Whether development happens at all may well depend more on current interest rates and the health of the housing market than [based] on concerns over protecting the eagles’ nest.”
Despite Community Concerns, UBC Trundles on
Despite community concerns and public scrutiny, UBC and the developer are sticking to their plans to obstruct the eagle nest at some point in the near future. As media attention has grown, UBC has shunted all discussion of the nest to the UBC Media Relations department and the planning office has not made itself available for comment to the media (to be fair, most of the staff who might comment are currently on holiday until after labour day).
Also silent in this story is Polygon, a major player in Vancouver’s development industry. Founder and Chair of Polygon’s board is Michael Audain, “he also serves as Chairman of the Audain Foundation, supporting the visual arts and wildlife conservation. Awarded five honorary doctorate degrees, Michael is an officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of British Columbia.” Audian is closely affiliated to UBC, having made many significant cash donations to UBC over the years. The Audian name can be seen on buildings across campus, like the art studies in Ponderosa Commons and even an endowed academic chair in art history. In 2014 UBC gave Audain an honourary degree. Polygon is involved in a large number of developments on UBC’s campus. This is a longstanding and close institutional relationship.
Community campaigner Claire England hopes UBC and Polygon will take a pause, and reconsider their current plans. Iconic protected species like Bald Eagles are just the tip of the iceberg of collapsing biodiversity in our world. They stand out and are obvious. But with each inch of land covered in concrete and asphalt we lose even more unseen indicators of biodiversity. With each concrete development we move further and further away from being able to do anything to end the climate emergency.
The Eagles nest has been coned as of sept 15th :(