Consumers Energy Hydros Helping Bald Eagle Recovery

JACKSON, Mich., March 2, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Beneficial habitat created by Consumers Energy dams helped bald eagles in 2014 reach a record 750 breeding pairs in Michigan.

"Many of the eagles soaring over Michigan today trace their roots to eagles that nested near Tippy Dam and other hydro facilities Consumers Energy operates along the Manistee, Au Sable and Muskegon rivers," said Gary Dawson, director of land and water policy at Consumers Energy.

The dams create backwater habitat where eagles can find secluded nesting sites and plenty of fish that are safe for them to eat.

The areas around hydro reservoirs provided critical bald eagle refuges when chemicals such as PCB and DDT, banned in the 1970s, severely reduced the eagle population across Michigan and the continental U.S. That's because dams block toxins transported by migrating Great Lakes fish from affecting eagles foraging above the dams.

Eagles feeding above the dams, where fish were up to a hundred times less contaminated than fish below the dams, were able to produce young. A bald eagle diet is 90 percent fish.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that in 1963 only 487 nesting pairs of eagles remained in the 48 contiguous states. A significant number of the survivors in Michigan were found on inland lakes and hydro reservoirs in the northern lower part of the state and the Upper Peninsula.

After the chemical bans, offspring of the eagles that had persisted around hydro facilities were able to spread to other areas of the state and set up breeding territories.

Bald eagles have fledged 270 young around Consumers Energy hydros since 1994 when the company implemented a bald eagle management plan, part of an agreement with regulators to operate river hydro generating facilities.

"Hydro facilities remain important eagle breeding areas today. While contaminants in fish below the dams have declined substantially over the last two decades, PCB concentrations still exceed EPA's standard for the protection of eagles and other sensitive wildlife," Dawson said. "We are at the midway point in our 40-year bald eagle management plan, and the birds have responded spectacularly."

The 750 bald eagle breeding pairs in Michigan estimated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the highest number since their census has been taken, and they are now commonly seen throughout the Great Lakes State.

"The recovery is ongoing," Dawson said. "Michigan will likely see a new record high number of eagles next year."

Highlights of Consumers Energy's bald eagle management plan include:

• Protecting old growth white pines
• Establishing a protection zone to minimize disturbance for each nest
• Protecting the eagles' food supply
• Contributing to eagle productivity census flights
• Successfully exceeding productivity goal of 1.0 eagles fledged per nest
• Successfully added new breeding territories which has increased annual eagle productivity on the hydros by more than 50 percent
  • Established eagle territory at Hardy impoundment where none had existed
  • Increased breeding territories at Cooke, Loud, Mio, and Tippy hydros

Consumers Energy, Michigan's largest utility, is the principal subsidiary of CMS Energy (NYSE: CMS), providing natural gas and electricity to 6.6 million of the state's 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties.

Eagle facts

• Congress passed the Bald Eagle Protection Act in 1940 as the population was in decline due to indiscriminate killing, habitat destruction and water pollution. That act protects eagles today.
• The insecticide DDT, which began to be used in the late 1940s, accumulated in fish then eagles, causing eggs shells to thin and break during incubation and bald eagles to disappear from Great Lakes shorelines and large rivers.
• Bald eagles were still an endangered species when Consumers Energy implemented a bald eagle management plan in 1994.
• Since 1994, 270 young bald eagles have fledged around Consumers Energy hydro impoundments.
• Bald eagles were removed from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife in 2007.

For more information about Consumers Energy, go to www.ConsumersEnergy.com.

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SOURCE Consumers Energy

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