It's now been a month since Big Bear's famous bald eagles, Jackie and Shadow, were supposed to hatch their eggs, and yet, despite them clearly being nonviable, the couple continues to incubate them as thousands of people continue to watch online.
Weeks ago, the online community that has so diligently watched the bald eagles tend to their three eggs through rain and snow was glued to the livestream hoping to see eaglets start to emerge from their shells. But as time wore on, the odds of that happening dropped to the point of no return.
Peter Sharpe, a wildlife biologist with the Institute for Wildlife Studies, said the eagles will continue to sit on the eggs until they crack.
“They dehydrate because the eggshells are porous so they should be losing water and eventually it just becomes more of an air filled space in the egg and they'll just break,” he said. “I would expect that to happen anytime now.”
If the eggs do break, Sharpe said, Jackie and Shadow will continue to act as though they are still breeding through the end of the season, usually in July.
“They know they should be doing something in terms of breeding at this time of year, so they may continue to work on the nest, they may start bringing food to the nest to eat,” Sharpe added.
Sandy Steers with Friends of Big Bear Valley, the organization that runs the livestream, said Jackie and Shadow are leaving the eggs uncovered for longer periods of time now.
“In the past, they don't usually give up completely. They just leave the eggs for longer periods and then sometimes they get preyed upon,” she said.
When the ravens preyed on unhatched eggs in the past, it upset Shadow.
“He stood there staring at the leftover eggshells and he just stood there for probably 10 minutes looking, just looking at them, not knowing what to do,” she said. “He was very upset and then he didn't, for the next couple days, he didn't do anything with his sticks — like he usually is always rearranging sticks and making sure the nest is all perfect.”
Sharpe also had some heart wrenching news for fans of the Big Bear pair.
He said if an eagle couple have had two to four years of unsuccessful breeding, they might break up and look for another mating partner.
“They don't know which one of the individuals is not either fertile or doing something wrong, so they may break up and find a new mate,” he said. “It would upset quite a few people, but a lot of eagles do come through that area in the fall, so there are opportunities to find another mate if one chooses to do so.”
