Their presence underscores the dramatic return of a bird nearly pushed to extinction and of the improving health of Toronto’s sprawling green spaces and waterways.
Bald eagles, a bird perhaps more associated with the imagery of North America than any other fauna, are a rare ecological success story.
Once common throughout the continent – including in the area that became the city of Toronto – the bird was soon seen as a pest for settlers and farmers. Local authorities encouraged the widespread slaughter of the raptors, promising bounties in exchange for carcasses.
And although policies were later changed and protections were introduced, eagle populations continued to dwindle, especially in urban areas.
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By the early 1960s, there were only a few hundred breeding pair left on the continent, said Michael Drescher, an environmental planning and conservation expert at the University of Waterloo.
The unlikely success of the bald eagle recovery in many ways mirrors the billion-dollar effort to restore the green spaces and wetlands threading Toronto.
But the arrival of eagles to the city reflects a deepening level of ecological recovery – one that suggests the thrumming heart of Canada’s largest metropolis isn’t just a suitable home for hardened, urban wildlife like squirrels, coyotes and raccoons.
The eagles were first spotted in recent months displaying mating behaviour high above the city, locking talons and tumbling through the air, before releasing close to the ground.
In early February, a handful of residents spotted their nest – roughly the size of a queen mattress – among the leafless tree branches and reported it to the TRCA.
But however long they last in the city, the pair also suggest a tangible result to the slow and costly efforts to clean up the polluted rivers, trash-strewn forests and lifeless old industrial sites.
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