"We'd like some compensation for that, for the sake of eagles and for anyone who likes to watch eagles and enjoy eagles," said Douglas Gross, the Pennsylvania Game Commission wildlife biologist who has been providing technical assistance on this issue to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which must give the permit to take the nest.
The state is proceeding to provide that compensation on two fronts. It is trying to gain control of an island that is home to an eagle's nest in the Delaware River. State officials do not want to name the island because they try to avoid disclosing where eagles live. The birds are highly sensitive to human contact and may flee their nests.
They will discuss their second front because it is already a well-known location: Pennypack Park in Northeast Philadelphia. Eagles have built a five-foot-tall nest there, hatching two young in 2009.
The state will ask a City Council committee Tuesday to add protections to that nest by enacting legislation that limits human access to it.
The legislation, which appears to represent the first time eagles that don't block and tackle have needed help from Council, would make parts of the park off-limits to human activity during nesting season from Jan. 1 through Aug. 15.
The bill also would limit construction and other activity near the nest.
Perversely, the taking of the Navy Yard nest is a sign of eagles' progress. Derided by Ben Franklin as birds of "bad moral character" because they steal fish from other birds, eagles were treated as vermin for many decades, their eggs used for decoration.
