DC Eagle Cam Update: Name the Eaglets Contest Begins

WASHINGTON, DC — D.C. bald eagle couple Liberty and Justice will have a pair of chicks soon, and the eaglets will need names. So the Earth Conservation Corps is asking the public for help, starting right away.

Liberty and Justice finished laying their eggs at the nest -- which is located at the Metropolitan Police Department Academy in Southeast -- on Feb. 7, and since there's a 35-day incubation period, that means they should hatch sometime between March 14-20.

Anyone can submit name suggestions for the two future eaglets by sending them to ECCLiberty@gmail.com through Sunday, March 12. A few select names will be put in a poll that will go live on March 13 at 9 a.m. The poll will close at 9 p.m. on March 14.

When the eaglets hatch, the names will be announced.

Pollution drove bald eagles from D.C. back in 1946, but the story began to change in the 1990s, when volunteers from the Earth Conservation Corps launched an effort to bring the national symbol home to D.C.

"Under U.S. Fish and Wildlife permits, the Corps translocated sixteen baby eagles from nests in Wisconsin to an artificial 'hack box' at the U.S. National Arboretum," an ECC statement reads. "After being raised for six weeks at the Arboretum the juvenile eagles were released into the skies over Washington. Four eaglets were released every spring from 1994 to 1998. Between the eagles restoration efforts the youth of the Earth Conservation Corps galvanized the entire city in their mission to restore the eagles' Anacostia River habitat.

"In the spring of 1999, right on schedule, five years after the first release, bald eagles, Monique and Tink (named after fallen corps members) established the first bald eagle nest in Washington in over half a century. In 2005, Liberty and Justice (named by Chief Cathy Lanier) built their nest at the Police Academy. In 2015, a third pair finally picked a nest site where it all began at the National Arboretum."

You can view the live Eagle Cam here.

Image via ECC