The BYU-Idaho Wildlife Society is teaming up with the Bureau of Land Management to conduct research centered around bald eagles.
This eagle research project started with surveys back in the 1980s, which focused on the current goals of the project today which are to monitor nests and their fidelity rates, or how often and for how long eagles come back to each nest. There are around 110 bald eagle nests in southeastern Idaho, ranging from Palisades to the Yellowstone Plateau, and some of those nests date back to the 1930s and 40s.
BYU-Idaho's Wildlife Society will be given responsibility of 20-30 nests for their part of the project.
"This one is really exciting because we've never done a bald eagle study," says Mikayla Khilobok, president of the Wildlife Society. "We've done some hawk studies here and there. Even the hawk study was pretty new last year, so it's exciting that our raptor studies are onward and upward so fast."
Raptors are birds of prey, or birds that hunt other animals.
The Wildlife Society and BLM are working to monitor fledgling or offspring success rates by using drones and other equipment to see how many eggs eagles lay and to observe hatchlings as they grow. They want to make sure the eagle population is growing, not declining.
Students involved will have the chance to use spotting scopes to see nests from afar while the experts working alongside them will scale trees with teams who have been trained to climb tall trees.
The project is currently a test run for BYU-Idaho's involvement.
“If all goes well, there is a lot of potential for expanding the project in the future," said Khilobok.
The eagle research project provides opportunities for any BYU-Idaho student to be involved.
"There are a lot of majors on campus where, in your future career, having some sort of research on your resume is going to look really, really good," Khilobok said. "Especially if you're in any sort of STEM field. In these partnerships, we always go out and do a little bit of public education. There's room for a lot of majors. We enjoy spending time with some of the other majors."
BYU-Idaho students who want to be involved can reach out to faculty member Jericho Whiting on campus here.