USING BALD EAGLES TO TRACK SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL TRENDS OF CONTAMINANTS IN MICHIGAN\u27S AQUATIC SYSTEMS

The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is an extensively researched tertiary predator. Studies have delineated information about its life history and the influences of various stressors on reproduction. Due to the bald eagles position at the top of the food web, it is susceptible to biomagnification of a wide array of xenobiotics. In Michigan the bald eagle population has recovered strongly since the population bottle-neck of the 1960s. In the 1960s when Michigan\u27s eagle population was first being monitored less than 100 nests were occupied yearly (i.e., active breeding pairs existed). Today there are approximately 500 occupied nests each year and over 700 breeding areas in the state