wild turkey were considered by a committee consisting of john adams thomas jefferson and benjamin franklin after the revolutionary war on june twentieth seventy eight to the second continental congress adopted the great seal of the united states of america choosing the bald eagle as its central image because of its great strength long life and majestic counte the story of the bald eagle is not without trouble the bird after all is not only a symbol but a living part of our environment there may have been more than one hundred thousand eagles here that's the movement to save and restore our wild things and places the congress that shows the great bird as our symbol began to act to save it in the northern forests of our state some one hundred or so eagles found refuge from the refuge of modern america over time their numbers grew and spread across the state and the nation today there are some ten thousand nesting pairs of eagles in the lower forty eight states perhaps as many as two thousand pairs in minnesota so many in fact that they are once again becoming a common sight even in our cities and suburbs they are right in the northeast metro there are four nesting pairs adapting to life in our modern world even the crowded rush hour traffic can't keep this pair in maplewood from successfully raising their young in a nest just for from one of our busiest highways i talked with ramsey county natural john mor y earlier this spring my name is john moriarty i'm the natural resource manager for ramsey county parks and today we're at the eagle nest is located at the north end of keller lake right along highway thirty six in maplewood over the last friday ten to fifteen years eagles have been constantly increasing in the urban areas where they first showed up was down along the river there was a couple nests down by pigs i a couple over in minnesota river valley nasa wildlife refuge but  fifteen years there's been a number of them and filled in along the rest of the river but also well into the suburban areas there's this nest here in maplewood there's one up on bald eagle lake right in behind some houses there's one in north  and there's also a new one that was started to be built in venice heights but they didn't nest that at this year hopefully they'll be back next fall the eagles were were greatly reduced in numbers back in the sixty's and early seventy's basically due to d rebuild and our are spread that up even more they figure there's over two thousand that's now in the state of minnesota when it was listen is a threatened species they figure there's less than two hundred so it really has been a good nice comeback egos are a good indicator of of pollution they have shown that you know the banning of d d t was a major success so contaminants can cause populations to decrease they're currently being studied now to see what other heavy that they might be carrying there have been issues with lead some with mercury and also with some of the the newer the p s c's the three m had produced and what they're finding is if those levels get too high there is reduced reproduction again so it is a good way of monitoring because they are kind of an apex species they're on top of their food chain so they accumulate all the contaminants that are found in the fish and the other animals sleep prey on well in an area like maple od if you'd asked me ten years ago i would have said you know the chances are pretty slim the you would have eagles here but to have them be in a situation where the nest is just you know a couple feet away from a major highway it shows their ability to adapt to to new situations and at this point i wouldn't be surprised to see every suburb in ramsey county have an eagle nest now within the next ten years the population just seem to be increasing i don't know how many people have you know seen bald eagles there's probably some agency that keeps track of that but what i find interesting is i still get phone calls from people saying do you know there's a bald eagle nest on highway thirty six i just saw today and it's been here for six years i mean the majority of the people that drive back and forth underneath that nest every day most of them don't even know it's there so it isn't the fact that they haven't seen bald eagles they just don't have it on their radar to even look for him and work for ramsey county parks and rec and within our department we have approximately twelve to fourteen parks scattered around the county some of them parks a regional park such as this keller park we have snail lake and shore view venice and sucker in venice heights plus  battle creek and long lake are bigger parks and within our parks we provide a lot of services to the community for picnicking swimming boat access to lakes we also have some of the largest land holdings as far as conservation lands go in the county we have approximately six thousand acres of land that we manage and most of it is in somewhat of a natural state as far as rare species in ramsey county there are some that are still rare there's others a couple other birds that people tied in with bald eagles one is the parent falcon and the other is the osprey which both had major declines in the seventy's sixty's and seventy's and they've come on to the point now where they're both found throughout the county several nests in downtown st paul they're also located over at the ford dam sprays have been found throughout a lot of areas across the northern part of the suburb or northern suburbs of the county so there's a number of those there are some other species that are rare in the county just because of habitat loss and they tend to be smaller species there's several species of birds one being a hens all sparrow that's only found in one or two spots some of the turtles in the county one is state threatened and it's found in several locations across the northern part of the county and then within the river itself which is considered part of the county there's a member of species of freshwater mussels or cla that are actually federally listed so there are there are rare species in this in the county and mainly it's due to the lack of habitat we just even with our bigger parks we don't have areas that have big enough pieces of land to protect those species of the things that our department tries to do within our natural areas is to restore things where possible and we do most of our work through grants in order to restore prairie's improve woodlands by removing invasive species but our funding is limited and we know there's a lot of issues throughout the parks but at this point we do as much as we can every year when dealing with eagles there are you a mess throughout throughout the county in the metro some them are in fairly urban areas such as this nest here on highway thirty six but just remember if you do see the nest is trying not to get up too close to him you can disturb the birds they are a federally protected species so we don't want to have anybody out there harassing them and just enjoying from a distance that's one reason we set up this viewing area off of keller parkway which is on the north side of highway thirty six you're far enough away where you can we don't disturb the birds but you still get a very good vantage point to see all the eagle viewing area is actually on the east side of lake which is part of calorie general park and it's on keller parkway so the best way to access this is taking the front of th off of highway sixty one just north of highway thirty six and coming around to the east or you can come up arcade on the the west side of keller lake and get on the keller parkway there so you just best way is just to look at up on a map we do have information on bald eagles listed on our county website so if you if you want directions to get to the site you can find them the enough food growing young