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The eagles have landed — and thrived — in Gotham.
For a century, there wasn’t a single bald eagle in New York City. Today there are at least four, and they’ve hatched up to a dozen eaglets, wildlife experts told The Post.
“Ten years ago, I think people would be shocked to hear there were bald eagles nesting in New York City — it sounds like the most unlikely place in the world,” said Richard Veit, a CUNY biology professor and director at NYC Audubon.
“Bald eagles are generally regarded as these wild creatures that are only in wilderness areas, and to have them here is a real eye-opener … It’s a dramatic event.”
The birds of freedom settled here in 2015, when a pair built their nest on Staten Island — the first time they’d been spotted in the urban jungle in over a century.
The Staten Island eagles were lovingly dubbed Vito and Linda by the birding community, and lived in a pine tree at the south end of Mount Loretto, a natural area on the seaside bluffs of Pleasant Plains that was once the site of a sprawling Catholic orphanage — and even a secret retreat used by New York’s archbishops.
Last year another pair made their home on top of an old owl’s nest at Brookfield Park, a former city landfill in Great Kills, said José Ramírez-Garofalo, a Rutgers University ecologist.
Experts say the eagle influx is due to the several state and federal environmental laws passed over the years — most significantly, the federal banning of the toxic pesticide DDT.
“Populations declined steeply because of DDT exposure, which made their eggshells really thin, so the females would crush the eggs and then they wouldn’t have successful reproductive years,” Ramírez-Garofalo explained.
Meanwhile, the Clean Water Act helped protect eagles’ primary food source, fish, allowing the birds to “thrive,” he said.
Being city birds, they will eat the occasional rat, as one photographer’s image shows.
While the Brookfield Park pair were successful in fledging two young this winter, their first breeding season, experts can’t agree on exactly how many hatchlings Vito and Linda have produced in their time on Staten Island — but same say the number could be as high as 11.
Without tracking devices on the birds, it’s also hard for experts to know exactly which birds are nesting where.
“Despite rumors to the contrary, they do not pair for life — and often switch partners depending on their breeding status or lack thereof in the previous season,” Veit explained.
And eagles have wanderlust.
“It’s likely that the birds that are being born in Staten Island are dispersing somewhere like New Jersey or somewhere else in the tri-state area, or region. It’s entirely possible they end up in Texas, but more likely it’s in the surrounding area,” Ramírez-Garofalo said.
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