Jan. 4—Three New Mexico lakes are set to hold a Midwinter Eagle Count to document the state’s bald eagle numbers and habitats — and the public is asked to help.
Abiquiú Lake, Santa Rosa Lake and Cochiti Lake will each host an event, inviting the community to help collect data on both bald eagle and golden eagle populations for an annual nationwide count. The events are free and require no registration, but attendees are asked to bring long-range viewing devices like cameras, and binoculars, to help aid in the data collection.
The eagle count has been conducted nationally since 1984 and for 20 years at Abiquiú Lake, but Santa Rosa Lake has hosted it for only a handful of years. For Cochiti Lake, this will be the first public eagle count.
It’s also the first year the bald eagle will be counted as the official national bird, thanks to a bill signed by President Joe Biden on Christmas Eve. The act codified the eagle’s role as a long-standing national emblem.
The eagle count, organized by the National Wildlife Federation and conducted by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, aims to document the total wintering bald eagle population in the lower 48 states — and to identify previously unrecognized winter habitats, like those at Cochiti Lake, which have previously gone undocumented.
The public is invited primarily to aid in spotting eagles, but the event also aims to raise public interest in conservation efforts — like those that succeeded in removing the bald eagle from “endangered” status in 2007.