Can an Eagle Have a Baby With a Duck
Can We Prevent an Hawkeye from Eating the Baby Loons on Our Lake?
Published May 27, 2019 at 5:00 AM CDT
one of
Baby loons less than three weeks old ride on the back of an adult loon on a Minnesota lake.
Pete Markham
2 of
2 baby loons less than three weeks old trail behind two adult loons on a Minnesota lake.
Pete Markham
This week's Wild animals Matters springs from a Curious Northward question.
Kaye Jaeger from the boondocks of Crescent asks: We beloved the loons on our lake. We also love the eagle that flies over regularly. Is in that location anything we can do to prevent the hawkeye from eating the baby loons?
To answer to Kaye's question, the Masked Biologist contemplates the interactions of 2 charismatic Northwoods wild fauna species: baldheaded eagles and loons.
It tin exist a terrible feeling any time you lot spotter one animate being attack, impale and swallow another animate being. I'one thousand not sure I can provide an reply that you lot volition like, or that volition make y'all experience any better, merely I will try.
Loons and bald eagles are two of our about iconic, emblematic Northwoods birds species. Both accept struggled with reduced populations in by years. Eagles suffered from significant impacts from dangerous pesticides, especially Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane. It took decades of dedicated effort to help bring them back. Loons accumulated heavy metals from consuming meals of fish, especially mercury and pb. Both are on the rebound, and both tin can be establish frequenting our college quality lakes beyond northern Wisconsin. Unfortunately, these birds cannot get along. While they are both predators, loons prey on fish and eagles casualty on fish and other wild animals species including loons. Eagles will eat other waterfowl besides. In fact, I remember working on a large wild fauna property in Kansas in the 1990s that hosted large numbers of migrating waterfowl. I saw bald eagle circling over a flock of ducks one day, and it harassed them plenty to purposely flush the ducks into the air. Then it went into a ability dive into the middle of the flock, knocking birds out of the air and downward into the water. Then information technology picked up one of the ducks, flew to its perch and proceeded to tear it apart and eat it. I was amazed, and impressed. In the moment, it didn't actually occur to me to feel bad for the duck.
Through the years, I have seen a lot of predator prey interactions, or at least the aftermath of it. I plant a spot where a wolf killed a deer, and all that remained were stomach contents. I routinely discover a claret spot in the woods with simply a few bickering feathers to tell the tale. In the moment, the life and decease struggle must seem horrific and one-sided. Completely non fair. In fact, though, the set on is not intended to be savage or personal. When a predator is killing prey, it is commonly for one of a couple of reasons. First, plain, they are hungry and they eat meat. Second, they may have had their natural predatory instincts triggered past an creature that appeared weak, ill or injured. This is all about maximum return for minimum effort. An animal wants to kill its nutrient without using up its free energy or getting hurt itself. I have seen from time to time where a predator was killed by its prey. Only those that are almost effective at killing without beingness killed volition alive to produce time to come generations.
Let me tell you another story, one I heard from a wildlife rehabilitator. There was a loon chick that was orphaned, and would need adults to care for it and teach it to evade predators and find food. The well-intentioned individual establish another loon family and released the chick in proximity hoping the loons would heighten it as 1 of their own. Well, that did not happen. The adult pair of loons attacked and killed that chick equally the horrified person watched helplessly from shore. 1 could argue that this attack was more savage than that of an eagle picking a loon chick off the water for a meal, peradventure to feed its ain young. These loons were simply exhibiting territoriality to the death, as lakes that are well suited to enhance their young on every year are worth fighting (and dying) over.
Loons and eagles are both protected by constabulary. We cannot interfere with an interaction between these ii birds non only because it is the police only because information technology is the natural guild of things. The loons that dive at the first sign of danger will survive, and they volition continue to raise offspring that dive to avoid eagles also. Instinct can merely deport a young bird so far; having the benefit of an experienced adult to teach them can mean the difference for hereafter generations.
Striving to make new things familiar and familiar things new, this is the Masked Biologist coming to you from the heart of Wisconsin's great Northwoods.
The higher up photos were taken by Pete Markham. You can view them on Flickr here and here and follow him on Flickr hither.
Do you have a question for the Masked Biologist? Submit information technology beneath to our Curious Northward series and it could exist featured in an upcoming commentary.
_
Source: https://www.wxpr.org/natural-resources/2019-05-27/can-we-prevent-an-eagle-from-eating-the-baby-loons-on-our-lake
Belum ada Komentar untuk "Can an Eagle Have a Baby With a Duck"
Posting Komentar