HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. — Spotting a Bald Eagle in the woods near Swan Creek in Havre de Grace is just part of life for people who live around here.
"I was raised here on this road, so I mean seeing the eagles is just a normal thing," Delores Kennedy said in an interview Monday.
She and other neighbors tell WMAR-2 News one of the trees has been home to a mating pair's nest for about 8 years before it was chopped down last week. "People would ask me, well, do you got pictures of it? No, I don't, because I drive by, I admire them and go on with my day," Kennedy said. WMAR-2 News did see a Bald Eagle in that location on Monday.
But Marshall Ebersole says, this was all news to him and his crew doing work in the area, and he's not convinced there ever was a nest.
"We've searched up and down and haven't found anything yet," Ebersole said.
"If it was summertime and there was so many leaves and stuff where they couldn't see a nest, that would be one thing, but these eagles are there every day all the time and the nest was totally visible," Kennedy said.
Ebersole works for Soapstone Sawmill, based in Lancaster County, PA. The timber management company is buying wood from a landowner on Old Robinhood Road, and employed a subcontractor to chop down the trees.
Soapstone Sawmill got a permit for the work from Harford County, and Ebersole says if there was an eagles nest there, he'd expect that to come up during the approval process.
"I just got off the phone with the landowner; they've been here 100-plus years, he said that, you know, you might see them [the eagles] along the creek every now and then, but nobody that I've talked to has known about a nest in this area besides a couple people being keyboard warriors on Facebook claiming that it's been there," Ebersole said.
The birds, and their nests, are federally protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. It's illegal to disturb a nest - even an inactive one - without a special permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Violations can result in a fine of $100,000, or even a year in prison.
But in order to apply for a permit allowing you to disturb a nest, you need to know there's a nest in the area. According to USFWS, it's the responsibility of anyone conducting activities that may disturb eagle nests to survey the area for them before starting the work.
Ebersole says they'd normally be alerted about one by either the landowner or a government agency while going through the regular permitting process, and since they weren't in this case, they went ahead with the work.
When Delores Kennedy drove by last week, she snapped this photo and shared it on Facebook.
"The nest is gone. How can somebody miss it? I mean, there's no leaves or anything stopping them from seeing a big nest like that, and the eagles are here every day," she told WMAR-2 News Monday. "I was mad. I mean, these poor things, they've lost their home, probably their eggs or maybe babies are laying out there dead because somebody didn't look up."
A lot of other neighbors were mad too, sharing Kennedy's post, calling state and federal agencies, and the sawmill too.
"That makes me feel good that actually people do care about that because when I heard about it, I was like, 'damn that sucks,'" local resident Josh Argentino said. "Because they've been endangered for so long, and especially out here on Aberdeen Proving Ground they did so many things to try to get the eagle population back up, and the eagle population has been doing really well in this area for a while because of the things they've done."
"I appreciate everybody chiming in because people need to be held accountable. This is just not right," Kennedy said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Maryland Natural Resources Police, and the Maryland Forest Service are all investigating. At this point they haven't been able to confirm whether there was a nest there, according to a spokesperson from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
USFWS told WMAR-2 News it cannot comment on ongoing investigations.
“We have a good reputation. We really like working with our land owners; we're getting new clients all the time, you know, I'm probably on 300, 400 properties a year, meeting new people every day,” Ebersole said. “When you get a couple negative comments about something that may or may not even be true, it's really stressful because it makes us look bad and you know, if it happened, it happened. We didn't try it, you know, we were unaware of it. But we're really thinking that it didn't happen."
This map shows where all the Bald Eagle nests have been reported to the Maryland Bird Conservation Partnership. There has not been one reported on Old Robinhood Road. The organization states on its website: "Lack of a nest at a specific location only means that a nest has not been reported. It does not mean that a nest does not exist."
To report a wildlife crime against a Bald Eagle, call 1-844-FWS-TIPS(1-844-397-8477)
