Sporting club boasts bald eagle increase

Officials with the Snake River Sporting Club say attempts to protect bald eagle nests near the 554-acre development resulted in an increase of birds after an Army Corps of Engineers assessment released in April.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service anticipated the loss of three bald eagle nests adjacent to the property, but according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, monitoring showed 19 chicks hatched and 14 eaglets successfully fledged from 2002 to 2007. The population in the area increased by 16 birds during the five-year period, according to club officials.

Gregg Camic, vice president of development and operations for the Snake River Sporting Club, said development during those five years occurred outside a 200-yard buffer surrounding the Martin Creek nest, adjacent to the development’s first phase. The buffer zone remained in effect during the summer months from the time any bald eagle chicks were born until they fledged.

Eventually, the closest structure in phase one will be roughly 500 yards from the nest. Phase one consists of 68 home sites on 361 acres, 286 of which is considered golf course and open space.

Camic said the club was required to pay for naturalists from a company called Pioneer Environmental to observe the birds.

“During the construction process, we had observers there basically writing down everything the eagles did every five minutes,” Camic said. “More than anything, you’re not supposed to have any activity around the nest when you have chicks in there until they have fledged.”

During phase two of the development, slated to begin in the summer of 2009, workers will construct a home within 100 yards of the Sawpit Creek nest, which the eagles inhabited in 2005 after the tree that held the old nest died and fell to the ground, Camic said. Phase two is 194 acres with the potential for 60 residential units and 85 acres of open space.

The Interior Department took the American bald eagle off the endangered species list on June 28, 2007.

Although monitoring is no longer required for either phase of construction because the bald eagle was removed from the Endangered Species List, Camic said the Snake River Club’s resident naturalist will continue to “actively observe” the nests. There are at least two more nests in the area.

“The expense involved was highly significant, but we had no problem doing it,” Camic said. “We will continue doing it in the future should it be required. The state [branch of the Army Corps of Engineers] is very satisfied.”

In a letter to Snake River Sporting Club officials, Matthew Bilodeau, program manager from the Wyoming office of the Army Corps of Engineers, said, “Successful nesting of bald eagles near the Snake River Sporting Club from 2002 through 2007 ... is a stark contrast to the loss of eagles anticipated by the USFWS.”

Franz Camenzind, executive director of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, pointed out that the successful eagle nesting during the past five years is due in large part because community members and conservation groups expressed worries about how the development would affect the birds.

Further, he said the eagle is only one wildlife species that relies on the sensitive ecosystem, which will be permanently disrupted by the development.

“I’m pleased to hear that the Army Corps of Engineers feels that the bald eagle population in that area is doing well,” he said. “That’s something we can all be pleased with. We had concerns beyond the eagle.”

“We know that habitat has been lost,” Camenzind said. “We know that the place has been altered. It’s the continuation of this alteration, this cumulative impact, that we are concerned with.”

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