A beloved bald eagle couple featured in a popular Big Bear livestream welcomed a pair of eaglets to their nest during the weekend.
Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV), a nonprofit dedicated to environmental education and preservation of the area, has hosted the Big Bear Bald Eagle Nest Camera livestream for more than a decade. The camera was installed in 2015 to demonstrate the community benefit of nature preservation, although the current nest occupants, bald eagles Jackie and Shadow, have been paired and settled there only since 2018.
Since then, the Eagle Nest Camera was identified by the Los Angeles Times as the most-viewed year-round nature livestream on YouTube. The livestream has also garnered a large following across social media, with around 1.2 million followers on Facebook and more than 760,000 followers on YouTube.
Since the hatching of the two new eaglets, the organization’s website traffic, social media page views and membership have all seen an uptick, said FOBBV Media Manager Jenny Voisard.
For the time being, the eaglets remain unnamed, but Voisard said FOBBV will soon announce a contest for the public to submit names for the new eagles. The contest will be judged by Big Bear Elementary’s third-grade class, who will eventually choose the winning submissions.
The livestream is not monetized, and is provided for free to the public, without advertisements, Voisard said. To support their preservation efforts, the nonprofit sells merchandise featuring Jackie and Shadow in their online store and hosts community fundraising efforts.
They are currently hosting a fundraiser to stop the development of mansions in a nearby marina, which threatens to damage the eagles’ habitat by taking over their foraging area, she added.
Allison Shultz, curator of the ornithology department at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said she had been following along with the livestream during the egg incubation period.
“I think it’s really captured kind of the public side, because with these live streams, people are able to experience bird lives in a way that they haven’t before,” Shultz said. “And I think maybe people don’t realize just how close they are to us.”
Viewers of the Big Bear Valley livestream have anxiously awaited the arrival of a pair of eaglets, whose eggs were laid at the end of February. Excitement stirred on Thursday evening when breaches in their eggshells were spotted, leading to the hatching of the first egg on Saturday night. The second egg hatched on Sunday.
Jackie took over the nest in 2016 and became a mated pair with Shadow in 2018, after Shadow wooed her away from another male eagle, Voisard said. Previously, Jackie and Shadow had lost a clutch of eggs to an attacking raven, but Jackie was able to recover and lay new eggs shortly after.
“They seem to be made for each other — a much better fit — and they’re very funny, and they have unique personalities, and they have a very dynamic relationship,” she said. “We’re just thrilled that they have chicks, because the eggs don’t always hatch, or for a variety of reasons, things don’t work out.”
Shultz said she was glad to see people show sympathy for the eagles’ well-being, which can help draw attention to preservation efforts and protect the species. Eagles also hold particular interest and excitement for viewers as a well-known symbol of the United States that many can easily recognize, she added.
Historically, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, bald eagles were widespread and abundant in California before becoming an endangered species in the early 1970s. The use of DDT, a synthetic insecticide developed in the 1940s, was found to be a main cause of birth defects in bald eagles. After it was banned from commercial markets, the bald eagle population quickly stabilized, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Although bald eagles are no longer classified as a federally endangered species, they remain endangered in California.
“People really get involved in the lives of these birds, and they care a lot,” Shultz said. “So it’s good for people to see just like, ‘What are the threats that these birds are facing?’”
Shultz said the eaglets will grow quickly over the next few weeks, eventually reaching full adult size in about 10 to 12 weeks. She plans to tune in to watch their progress, especially as the first couple of weeks are often the most vulnerable period for baby birds.
“I think as they get more and more developed, it’ll be fun to watch them practicing flight, you know, starting to perch on the edge of the nest and flop their wings and just get ready,” Shultz said. “But I don’t know, I kind of like seeing all the stages…. I think people are getting very excited about transition, so probably there’ll be a lot of people watching right before they start to take flight.”