Golden eagles soar to South Carolina

Jake Oates, a South Carolina biologist, was going through photographs from a wildlife camera last winter when he spotted a picture that made him snap awake.

Standing tall was a golden eagle, a large raptor more widely found in the Western United States. The bird, a muscular cousin of the bald eagle, had landed near a deer carcass in a field between Florence and Myrtle Beach, said Oates, who works with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.

“It was very exciting for us, just finding something in this area we didn’t know about,’’ Oates said.

The discovery is evidence that golden eagles are more common in South Carolina than many people realize, the natural resources agency said.

While veteran biologists say they’ve seen golden eagles in the state for decades, it has been debatable how abundant the big birds actually are. Some past surveys show relatively few golden eagles, in some years failing to document any of them.

But more recently, golden eagles have been photographed on trail cameras at both the Marsh Wildlife Management area in rural Marion County and at the Savannah River Site nuclear weapons complex, a vast and largely undeveloped area near Aiken along the Georgia border. The eagle in Marion County was photographed last winter in 10 different shots.

Todd Katzner, who is leading a study to document golden eagles in the Eastern United States, said they have more typically been found in the Appalachian Mountains from New York to Alabama. Seeing them along the coast and in central South Carolina is insightful, he said.

“We now have a better understanding than we did of the distribution and abundance of these birds in the state,” he said.

Katzner’s research project, which includes scientists from Virginia and West Virginia, is believed to be the first effort of its kind to document golden eagle numbers in the East.

Golden eagles are powerful, dark-colored birds with wing spans that can exceed 6 feet. They rival bald eagles in size, and in many cases, are larger.

To the untrained eye, they can be confused with other similarly colored birds, such as young bald eagles, or even vultures – which makes them hard to document. Unlike golden eagles, bald eagles develop white head feathers as they mature. Golden eagles also are sometimes harder to spot because they don’t soar as often over open waterways, where bald eagles are found.

Goldens can grow to weigh 15 pounds and can dive after prey at speeds of up to 150 mph. They prey more on small mammals, rather than the steady diet of fish that bald eagles rely on. They’re also considered more aggressive than bald eagles and less apt to steal food from other species, scientists said. One once was reported to have attacked a cat, the DNR says.

Nationally, the Western U.S., with an estimated 35,000 golden eagles, has far more of the meat-eating birds than the Eastern U.S., Katzner said. But his research has found at least 5,000 golden eagles in the eastern United States, he said. Many of them migrate in the winter from Canada, where they breed.

Bald eagles are far more abundant in the Eastern United States. In South Carolina alone, there are an estimated 800-900 bald eagles in the state, up from just a few dozen more than 40 years ago.

Katzner and Tom Murphy, a retired eagle biologist with the S.C. DNR, said they believe golden eagles have always lived in the East, but the birds might be growing in numbers, just like bald eagles. Bald eagles have recovered substantially since the 1970s from the ravages of pesticide exposure and hunting across the country and in South Carolina.

Murphy said he was not particularly surprised that a golden eagle had been documented in Marion County. He has seen them in the past at the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center in Georgetown County, also a coastal area. What he’s keenly interested in is whether golden eagles ever start breeding in South Carolina, which is not known to have happened in the past.

“Actual nesting would be big news,’’ Murphy said.

Katzner’s study relies on the use of trail cameras to photograph wildlife attracted to deer carcasses. When the animals stop to feed, a camera snaps their picture. And that includes golden eagles. The discovery of the big bird resulted from the S.C. DNR’s participation in the study Katzner is working on. Cameras were used in South Carolina during the winter, when golden eagles are more likely to be here.

“We plan to (look) again next year,’’ Oates said. “I hope to recruit other DNR offices to do it this next year.’’

This story was originally published June 28, 2015 at 8:47 PM with the headline "Golden eagles soar to South Carolina."