The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

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January 3, 2006

Salt Plains plans Eagle Watch Saturday andJan. 14

Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge and the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation will have their annual Eagle Watch at 3 p.m. Saturday and Jan. 14.

Eagle Watch is free, and reservations are not needed. Visitors will come to the refuge headquarters at 3 p.m. and learn about the bald eagle’s natural history and then caravan to watch eagles coming in to roost for the evening.

Visitors are asked to bring a lawn chair or blanket and dress warmly in earth-tone colors. Hot chocolate will be provided.

There also will be a length of time when visitors will have to wait quietly for the eagles to come in to roost.

Visitors also can come earlier and learn to identify other winter birds in a program and tour Byron State Fish Hatchery Watchable Wildlife Area. This program will start at 1 p.m. Jan. 7 at the area located two miles north of the junction of Oklahoma 11 and Oklahoma 38, then one-half mile west at the sign. Biologists and visitors will end the program with enough time to get to Salt Plains NWR for Eagle Watch.

Oklahoma is visited by 700 to 1,500 bald eagles every winter. Less than 30 years ago, there were fewer than 500 nesting pairs in the lower 48 states — causing the American icon to be listed as endangered. Due to wildlife management projects, there are approximately 5,700 knows pairs in the lower 48, and the bald eagle has been downgraded from endangered to threatened.

For more information about Eagle Watch, contact Emily Neidigh at (580) 626-4794.

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