In the next few weeks, the young bald eagles in nests located in White Rock and South Surrey will start preparing to spread their wings and fly.
Featured on live, 24/7 streaming cameras set up by the Hancock Wildlife Foundation, viewers have been able to watch as the eaglets were first laid as eggs, then as they hatched, with the White Rock pair hatching on April 24, and 25 (their nest is located on a private portion of the White Rock bluff overlooking Boundary Bay), followed by the duo in the Surrey Reserve nest (South Surrey, on 0 Avenue by the border), which hatched on May 1 and 2.
“Eagles know to stay in their nest until they’re ready. An eagle – if its left to its own instincts – usually flies on the 83rd or 84th day,” said David Hancock, founder of the Hancock Wildlife Foundation.
When eaglets are getting ready to fledge – when they make their first flight, it’s called fledging – in the week to 10 days prior, they’ll start preparing for it with what is called branching, Hancock noted, when the eagle starts to take short hops or flights to branches in the nest tree, if there are branches nearby.
“If there are some branches above the nest, they’re jumping up through the branches and around the nest,” he said.
“They’re improving their ability and their neuro-muscular control, so when they plan to land on that branch they do – they don’t miss it. They are developing their tactile senses – how do they grab onto branches and stay there and hold on – it is so important to develop that before making that first flight – if you can’t land, you’ve got a real problem. It’s not just flying, it’s landing, too.”
For the White Rock nest, that likely means the eaglets will fledge around July 15 (83 days after the first eaglet hatched); the South Surrey eaglets should follow seven to eight days later.
Hancock, who has studied bald eagles and wild birds since he was a youngster, noted their feathers are hard-pinned by the 83rd or 84th day, which means the feathers no longer have blood and nutrients supplying them.
“That ensures on their first flight, that if they bang the base of their feathers on the landing, that they’re not breaking this big blood capsule that’s growing the feather,” Hancock explained.
“That 83rd or 84th day, nature has determined that ‘Hey kid, you’re ready to go,” he said. “The day that each bird leaves the nest, they are bigger than that bird is ever going to be in its life – it weighs more and its feathers are longer and wider than they’re ever going to be.”
Each time the eagle molts, the feathers get a bit shorter and narrower for the first three to four molts, because, as the bird matures and gets more experience in flying, it gets more neuro-muscular control on each feather and it becomes more efficient at flying, “so it doesn’t need the great huge sails it needed when it first left the nest,” he said.
“Usually they’re not fed for a day or two before they fledge… the parents know it, so they don’t bring any more food to the nest.
The eaglets are actually “on a high” for awhile after absorbing so much extra nutrition in the rest of their body because their feathers are all complete, and they then grow a lot of body fat with all that nutrition, which makes makes them bigger and heavier, Hancock said.
“By the time they make the first flight, they’re getting hungry because they haven’t eaten for two or three days… because they were so big and heavy, nature’s plan is (for them) to drop some weight so they can soar more easily and glide downhill to Alaska, because they’re going to get their first bloody meal usually in Alaska, not here.”
Although parents usually stop feeding their eaglets in the wilderness, a few birds will still get fed by their bald eagle parents in urban areas even when they’re getting ready to fledge, he said.
“This is a city phenomenon. Humans can’t get rid of their kids in cities and eagles have the same damn problem,” Hancock said, with a chuckle.
“Some of these city eagles can’t get rid of their kids either, so they end up trying to feed them, and that’s a problem, because then you start to feed them and then they just want to keep being fed.”
Normally, the usual method of an eagle is, it will fly around and practise flying for four to five days first.
“He doesn’t get fed, he just drops a bit of weight, and he’s getting better at flying and he’s got less baby fat to carry around, so its easier to fly and easier to soar on the updrafts.”
While there’s no salmon available in the Lower Mainland or valley yet, up north, “all those northern rivers are covered with dead salmon already.”
“It’s built into them: ‘Go north, young man or young lady, and you’ll find dinner,’” said Hancock.
All bald eagles – not just babies and juveniles – revert back to their vulture ancestry and scavenge for food six months out of the year, he noted.
“Even the adults do this – they do’t bother catching a damn thing all fall and winter, and live on dead salmon” and other scavenged dead animals starting from the end of June or July.
“That’s why we get some 35,000 to 50,000 bald eagles coming through the Fraser Valley every year. We are the biggest concentrating place for bald eagles in the world.”
To view the live streaming cameras of the bald eagle nests, visit hancockwildlife.org
TORONTO – Health Canada has authorized Moderna’s updated COVID-19 vaccine that protects against currently circulating variants of the virus.
The mRNA vaccine, called Spikevax, has been reformulated to target the KP.2 subvariant of Omicron.
It will replace the previous version of the vaccine that was released a year ago, which targeted the XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron.
Health Canada recently asked provinces and territories to get rid of their older COVID-19 vaccines to ensure the most current vaccine will be used during this fall’s respiratory virus season.
Health Canada is also reviewing two other updated COVID-19 vaccines but has not yet authorized them.
They are Pfizer’s Comirnaty, which is also an mRNA vaccine, as well as Novavax’s protein-based vaccine.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
