Record Number of Eagles Counted in State

The final tally is in for the state's annual survey of bald eagles — and it's a record.

Eighty birds total — fifty-four adults and twenty-six juveniles — were counted statewide by wildlife officials and volunteers earlier this month.

Tom French of MassWildlife says that shows that restoration efforts are working, even though bald eagles are still endangered in Massachusetts.

"Eighty is an all-time record, and we're pretty certain that there are individual adult birds from known pairs that we didn't see," French says. "The question is, how high can it get? We could, I think, easily break a hundred in a single-day count in the fairly near future."

The survey is done yearly to monitor the size and health of local eagle populations.