Politics Break: The Big Bear Bald Eagle Cam
A real treat after radio today when I checked in on the eaglets in the nest at Big Bear Lake — they were right in front of the camera!
When I’m in my office I have two monitors on my desk and I always keep the cam up in one so I can peek at them while working.
Normally we just see their backs and profiles as the eaglets position themselves at the edge of the nest facing the valley. Today, we got a stare down!
Per the live cam (embedded below): “The nest is located in Big Bear Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California. It is about 145 feet up in a Jeffrey Pine tree. It is the current home for Jackie & Shadow, a local bald eagle pair.”
The camera was first installed in 2015 with a wide-angle camera added a few years later. Watching bald eagles raise a family in the wild west is surreal.
Unfortunately, the area where Jackie and Shadow live is being threatened by "luxury” development. A developer wants to throw 50 “luxury” houses and another marina on one of the last undeveloped shorelines in the area, less than one mile from Jackie and Shadow’s nest. Such an addition would have a dramatically negative impact on these majestic creatures’s ability to continue raising eaglets in this nest. There is already so much development in this area.
While I’m not anti-development (my husband has developed commercial property before), I am anti-unnecessary development and high density development. Currently, the San Bernardino Mountain Land Trust has a limited agreement with the developer that if the trust can raise $10 million (a little over $5 million is still needed) by the end of July, the trust can buy the land (funds raised only go to the land purchase) and it can be incorporated into the United States Forest Service, permanently protecting this ecological corridor for bald eagles and this last bit of this wild, undeveloped shoreline. They are still accepting donations here.