Eagle Nests @ UBC

Urban bald eagles and UBC's residential densification

The history of settler/eagle interactions in North America is a mostly sad story with with a hopeful epilogue. The first major decline in bald eagles occurred in the 1800s. The birds faced habitat destruction as settlement proceeded westward. Bald eagles were also hunted, poisoned, and trapped by settlers who saw them as potential livestock predators. In British Columbia clear cut logging practices of the late 1800s and early 1900s, combined with unfettered urban development along the lower Fraser River and southern Vancouver Island, played a major role in destroying eagle habitat. Things started to look up a bit for eagles, but then populations started to nosedive across North America mid-twentieth century due to the indiscriminate use of DDT. Eagle populations have stabilized over the last few decades as a result of more effective regulation of DDT and other forms of habitat destruction.

Bald Eagle nest sign in UBC’s south campus development zone.

Despite the general stability of BC’s bald eagle population there are only about 20 active eagle nests in the City of Vancouver (including two nests at UBC, one on Ross Drive and the other on Old Marine Drive). Eagles tend to nest with close proximity to water. This is a problem for eagles in urban and suburban areas as humans also like to ‘nest’ near water. Waterfront lots tend to be cleared of tall trees to preserve view lines for expensive homes. It’s not just homes, but the industrial harbour front of Vancouver’s export economy was razed to the ground leaving little for eagles until second growth timber matured along the city’s margins. It’s hard to say how many nests used to be in the area of Vancouver in the 1800s, I can hazard a lot more than 20.

It’s in this context that UBC is putting in place plans to interrupt the use of a currently active nest. This nest is beside a soon to start private market housing development that features a building 16 stories high. An artificial alternative nest has been placed in a tree further from the current developments with the hopes it will attract the displaced nesting pair in the spring of 2023. [I have requested detailed background from UBC Community & Campus Planning, but as yet have only the promise of documentation in hand].

Table from Status of Eagles report, Washington State.

Eagle nests @ UBC

There is only one nest on UBC campus proper, the one on Ross Drive in south campus. There are a couple of others nearby in Pacific Spirit Park, the closest of which is along Old Marine Drive near the UBC Botanical Gardens. Given UBC’s penchant for tree removal (I acknowledge UBC”s policy of one new tree planted for each tree cut down) I am surprised there is even one nest on campus at all. It’s a testament to the resilience and perseverance of these large raptors.

According to the UBC report an eagle nest was established along Ross Drive sometime prior to 2011. It is useful to note that Ross Drive was likely built after the nest was established, so the phraseology that locates the nest alongside of Ross Drive is technically and logically incorrect. One might better phrase this as Ross Drive was constructed alongside a preexisting eagle nest on the UBC campus. Minor point, but said the other way implies the eagles are the newcomers, not the development team.

The report implies no active use (without expressly saying so) of the nest until about 2017. The date was coincidentally the same as when plans were already underway to build a faculty/staff rental building (Oakwood) and a market rental tower (Georgia Point), both operated by subsidiaries of UBC Properties Trust (UBC’s development company). Once the nest became apparent to the developers and they realized that they wouldn’t be able to remove all of the trees they had wanted to, a revised plan was put in place to enable development to proceed and momentarily save the eagle nest from the logger’s axe.

It’s important to point out that amongst those community residents who live in this area are those of us who pay attention to the existence of a wide variety of local flora and fauna. From a local perspective it was well known that eagles where using the space adjoining the UBC Farm. From a development perspective eagles only become relevant or of interest when they became a potential obstacle; and they became an obstacle to the 2017 development. Thus the sign posted on Ross Drive describes the nest as having “appeared to be inactive” and then “when eagle activity was noted [in 2017]” a biologist was hired to do a study. Becuase the developers were not paying any attention to the nest until they wanted to develop the lot, there is no official data about the existence of the eagles. This allows for an erasure of the eagles’ presence that renders them as episodic visitors, when in fact the developers are the episodic visitors, yet their narrative is the one validated as authoritative.

Original development site showing proximity of eagle’s nest.

On the first go around in 2017 they cut back the buildable size of Lot 11 and created a small postage stamp of a protected area that includes a handful of mature second growth trees and the eagle nest. The consultant’s report spent a good bit of time describing how small the patch of trees is and the fact most of the surrounding trees had already been logged off in the 1980s. This subtle discursive flourish leaves an impression the nesting space is disturbed (which it is) and ecologically marginal (which is less certain), even though a breeding pair of eagles have occupied it for more than a decade. Once approvals were in place the construction of Georgia Point and Oakwood went forward and the eagles continued to use their nest up to the present.

Meanwhile, more development was planned across the street from the eagle nest. Lot 6 development, a private leasehold project including a 16 floor apartment tower (over the OCP height limit that was original set to the height of a mature Douglas Fir) and a three floor townhouse segment, was initially set to proceed around the start of the pandemic but was delayed until recently when final Development Permit Board approval was granted (March 9, 2022). None of the Lot 6 documents seem to say anything about the eagle nest across the road. However, UBC Properties Trust and UBC Campus Planning have set in play a plan to displace the eagles from the current nest with a metal cone. An artificial nesting platform has been constructed to attract the birds once they realize their preferred spot is unusable. [As noted above, I’ve requested background documentation from UBC, but as of yet have received no definitive information on their plans. Apparently UBC Properties Trust is assembling the info.]

Human made artificial nest platform built in hopes of attracting eagles.

The nest site selected by the eagles has 360 degrees of visibility and is located near the top of the tallest tree in the tree patch. The artificial platform lacks the same clear line of sight and flight access and is relatively lower down in the forest canopy than the actual nest site. The idea is, however, that once the original nest is coned, the birds will simply shift location a few hundred meters to the human built platform. This is an approach that has been used by other developers, like oil and gas company, Transmountain Pipeline.

‘Coning’ nests

One prominent example of ‘coning’ an eagle’s nest can be found along the Transmountain Pipeline route in Burnaby. In this case the pipeline company called in noted local eagle expert, David Hancock, who recommend coning and building a nest replacement nearby (UBC Properties Trust also hired Hancock to advise on the siting and building of an artificial nest). A local environmentalist group criticized the plan and questioned the ethics of coning the nest. The outcome was, however, positive (at least in the short term), and the nesting pair moved to the new artificial nesting platform the following season.

Cone placed over an active eagle nest to discourage use of nest.

It is useful to consider the effectiveness of disturbance and nest relocation over a longer than single season duration. One study of a nest within 25m of a home construction site in the San Juan Islands seemed to show disturbance had no adverse impacts on a nesting pair of eagles during the first season after the end of the three year construction period (the building was completed in stages).¹ The authors of the study note the eagles were highly tolerant of human presence and successfully fledged chicks during at least one season after the house was occupied. However subsequent to that the eagles deserted the nest.

There’s very little direct evidence that coning, combined with a nearby artificial nest structure, actually works - but the one example folks point to (the transmountain nest) did work. It would be helpful to have more than one good ‘just so’ example. Myles Lamont, Director of Research at the Hancock Wildlife Foundation, told me that for the projects they “have been involved with, [their] mitigation success has been upwards of 90% depending upon what types of mitigation plan was implemented.” They have decades of data but no time to write it up for publication. What is published documents a long history of constructing artificial raptor nest structures (mostly for Peregrine Falcons and Ospreys). The published academic literature evaluating the success of these structures bodes well for doing this for eagles.

I came across one neat study of using aluminum poles to erect a 50 foot tripod nest structure for a pair of eagles. Published in 1980 this paper gives a great explanation (including materials list) of how to build an artificial eagle’s nest.

One can also find detailed instructions on how to build osprey nests online and in applied ecology journals. But the idea of obstructing a nest to displace a pair of eagles to a nearby artificial replacement nest seems severely under studied. One good example doesn’t prove it works, but it does provide some assurances that it might work.

I spent some time trying to track down a provincial official with responsibility to issue permits to disturb eagle nests. UBC had mentioned working from advice from a provincial agency, but offered little beyond that. I was able to find the responsible party and had a great conversation about everything from spotted owls to mountain goats and, of course, bald eagles. As it turns out there is a long history of the province providing advice to UBC [though, UBC is very circumspect as to where or from whom they get their advice]. The long and short of it is that since UBC has no intentions of stopping development the regulatory agency is obligated to work with the developer (UBC) to find a compromise solution that has some semblance of likelihood of working. The plan to temporarily displace the eagles to an alternative nesting site is seen as the best outcome in the face of continued development on campus. This is of course only a ‘best approach’ if we merely see eagles as a thing in the way of development that need to be overcome, rather than respected in their own .

Final Thoughts

The provincial biologist mentioned to me that the eagle fledging success rate has been horrible this year. In one local area last year about 20 chicks survived, this year only three. Despite eagles showing modest signs of population recovery (still no where near pre-settler levels), the road to a healthy future is not guaranteed. While the anecdotal evidence seems to support coning and displacement, the real answer involves dialling back on development and finding a better ways to share our common environment with majestic creates like bald eagles.

We live in the midst of a climate emergency. We all say we care and are concerned, but then the excuses and the calls for being pragmatic come tumbling forth. We continue to make compromises to ensure development keeps on moving. Saving three trees for an eagle nest is presented as a victory, as proof we can keep developing and save biodiversity. That’s just not a victory story, it’s a tragedy, a former old growth forest is reduced to marginal second growth timber that is itself being rapidly clear cut to squeeze in even more humans. Yet, these stories are told by the university developers as positive, optimistic, victory narratives.

Of course focussing on one eagle nest won’t solve the climate emergency. But, by turning the story around, seeing it as the tragedy it is, we might allow ourselves to think differently. Perhaps we should think about the eagles as having a right to exist, not a privilege to live at our human whim. Seeing things differently might improve our relations with our animal neighbours. It might lead us to a place we accept an eagle nest as a home of beauty, not an obstacle to development.

1. Watson, James W., D. John Pierce, and Brenda C. Cunningham. “An Active Bald Eagle Nest Associated with Unusually Close Human Activity.” Northwestern Naturalist 80, no. 2 (1999): 71–74. https://doi.org/10.2307/3536932.