06/15/2026
This baby eagle is helping scientists monitor the health of Michigan’s waters. 🦅
In conjunction with Superior Watershed Partnership, researchers from Wings Over Water Research Institute visited Kona Hills Campground this weekend to collect blood samples from a bald eagle nestling.
Every spring for 6+ decades, researchers have tracked bald eagle nests across the Great Lakes region.
Scientists climb to nests, collect measurements, band young eagles, and take blood and feather samples before returning the birds safely to their nests.
The result is a massive dataset spanning generations of eagles and environmental change.
Researchers test samples for:
• PFAS (forever chemicals)
• Mercury
• PCBs
• Legacy pesticides
• Other environmental contaminants
Nestlings spend their lives close to the nest and depend entirely on food brought by their parents.
A few drops of blood can reveal the health of an entire ecosystem and serve as living environmental report cards for the watersheds where they are raised.
The data collected through these monitoring programs helps scientists understand the impacts of contaminants like DDT and PCBs that once pushed bald eagles to the brink of extinction.
Those discoveries informed conservation efforts that contributed to one of North America’s greatest wildlife recoveries.
Michigan’s bald eagle population grew from just 83 breeding pairs in 1980 to roughly 900 breeding pairs today, an increase of more than 1,000% in a little over four decades.
Today, the same research is helping scientists understand emerging threats like PFAS, avian influenza, food availability, and changing environmental conditions.
Every nest visit adds another piece to a dataset that stretches back more than 65 years.
That long-term perspective allows researchers to identify trends that would otherwise go unnoticed and helps protect not just bald eagles, but the waters, fish, and wildlife that all of us depend on.
You can learn more about their work at wingsoverwaterri.org
