Experiment Bald eagles are dining well on murres on Tatoosh Island. Two days ago, our research team discovered all 80 murre eggs we'd mapped in crevices earlier this season have disappeared. Bald eagles have also hammered the island's gulls. Yesterday, our search for gull nests in a place on the island we call The Saddle revealed just a single chick. Throughout the decade I've worked on this island, bald eagles and peregrine falcons have kept seabird populations in check.
Peregrines take the smaller auklets and the storm petrels.
Neither predator nests on Tatoosh, but eagles are regular visitors. Murres find safety in numbers whether nesting on cliff tops or in crevices on the cliff face. We measure the intensity of eagle activity and its effect on the murres in several ways. First, we count the number of eagles we can see from our lookout on Burning Barrel Point. Juvenile eagles are easily distinguished from adults by their dark plumage and dark beaks.