Bald Eagles Nesting In Milwaukee Means The Birds Now Call Every Corner Of WI Home

MILWAUKEE, WI — An active bald eagle nest has been confirmed in Milwaukee County, marking the first time in decades that the raptors can call every county in Wisconsin home.

The icing on the cake of the news, according to Sharon Fandel, a conservationist biologist for the Wisconsin DNR, is that not only is there one confirmed active nesting pair, there are three other pairs of eagles that are possibly forming a territory in Milwaukee County. Fandel says we'll see if those other eagles make a nest this year.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had reported the story first. There were only 107 bald eagle nests in the state in 1974, the report says. The chemical DDT, which was widely used to curb mosquitos in the '70s, had harshly affected populations of the bird and brought them into decline.

Fandel told Patch the chemical built up in the birds' systems, and had made it so their eggs were so brittle they would crack under the weight of the birds when they were nesting.

Eventually, DDT was banned in 1972, and bald eagles started to make a comeback, the Journal Sentinel report said.

The birds' stronghold has always been the larger river systems and the north woods of Wisconsin, but in more recent years they've been filling in other habitats, Fandel said.

"Milwaukee County, being the most urban and the most heavily populated and developed county in the state, I think most of us figured that county would be the last one that we'd be able to check off the list," Fandel said.

"We haven't had that since pre-DDT era," Fandel said, "and it just continues to kind of solidify the comeback story of the bald eagle from its low point in the 70s."

When eagles look for a habitat, they generally like to have a fair amount of open space, Fandel said. Somewhere a little quiet with some green space — it doesn't always have to be near a river, but it often is.

Their nests can get quite large, Fandel said. The raptors will come back and continuously build on them each year that they stay in that territory.

In Milwaukee, besides the confirmed nesting pair, Fandel says the other eagles seen around the area are starting to form a bond, and what the DNR is seeing right now, is that they're starting to build a nest structure in Milwaukee.