By the time that the use of DDT was banned in 1972, the population of bald eagles in New Jersey had shrunk to a single nesting pair.


Amazingly, the birds slowly began to recover with the help of the Endangered and Nongame Species Program. 

The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife released its annual Bald Eagle Project this week with more encouraging results.

The statewide population increased to 161 territorial pairs last year, up from 156 pairs in 2014. One-hundred-fifty of those pairs were known to have laid eggs, up from 146 in 2014.

Additionally, those 150 nesting sites produced 199 young, and with another chick from Maryland that was fostered in a Cumberland County nest, New Jersey’s total number of eagles fledged increased to 200.

“It’s one of the great success stories in wildlife conservation,” said Kathleen Clark, a biologist with the state’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program. “It’s the result of a lot of work in New Jersey, but also, the biologists in the surrounding states as well.”