Few people see golden eagles the way Rick Vetter does. The retired southern Oregon wildlife biologist monitors their nests, which are about 10 feet tall and mostly wedged between towering cliff walls, and yet hard to find unless an expert points them out.
And that won’t be Vetter. His decades-long dedication has established him as one of Oregon’s fiercest golden eagle protectors.
In 2020, he received an Order of the Eagle Award from Oregon State Parks for his outstanding contribution as a volunteer.
He’s stealth; pointing his telltale spotting scope in the wrong direction if an unexpected truck drives by while he’s checking on adult golden eagles and their vulnerable chicks.
Some of the nests, each an elaborate assemblage of branches, date back to the 1870s. One golden eagle nest near the Idaho border is the size of a Volkswagen beetle.
Vetter’s favorite nest disappears from his view in mid-day heat waves and reappears during windless sunsets. His secret observation perch also attracts rattlesnakes.
Vetter spends most of the year bouncing around in his well-worn Ford Expedition over rocks, sand, mud and water to places he first saw when working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service.
He is also constantly searching new nesting areas and logging locations in his field notes. He shares his information sparingly and for one reason: to save the federally protected bird from the impact of solar projects, wind farms, power lines and construction of new roads and lithium mines.
What he can’t prevent: People shooting the largest, fastest, nimblest raptor in North America. About 700 adult golden eagles die from bullets each year in the U.S.
Vetter and colleague Frank Isaacs, a retired Oregon State University wildlife biologist, routinely observe some of Oregon’s estimated 1,177 golden eagle nests to see if they’re vacant or occupied.
Isaacs said Vetter’s updated knowledge of the bird’s population, range and reproduction, added to intermittent nest monitoring since the 1940s and the extensive 2011-20 study of Oregon’s golden eagles initiated at the request of the Fish and Wildlife Service, “will be valuable to future research.”
In all, Harney County, where Vetter lives, has more than 175 known nests. He monitors more than half of them each year with help from biologist Jack Hansen at Roaring Springs Ranch and endurance hiker Candace Larson who are willing to survey a few hundred thousand acres of Oregon’s outback and miles of cliffs and buttes.
During a private tour of his regular monitoring routine in April, Vetter was wearing a faded green cap over his silver hair, a camo shirt that blended into the sagebrush landscape and the strap to his binoculars around his neck.
The 70-year-old said keeping track of golden eagle nests keeps him active and his brain sharp.
“There’s the biological part too,” he said. “I consider the chicks like children and I get to know them from March to June” until, as juveniles, they fly away in summer to hopefully establish a territory for themselves.
Most never experience that goal. Only 20% of the chicks will survive. Golden eagles also succumb to lead poisoning from ingesting lead-based ammunition shot into their prey and from collisions with vehicles and structures.
A golden eagle hit by a car as it fed on fresh roadkill near Frenchglen in Harney County was banded to track its survival rate as a chick in a nest that Vetter has monitored since 1990.
Vetter moves carcasses from the side of the road to a field safe for wildlife and calls utility companies when birds are electrocuted to have specific power poles modified.
Vetter spoke softly about the golden eagles that nested for a long time at the Narrows Pullout viewing point along Oregon 205 near the 190,000-acre Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
“They would soar around and over me,” he said. “I swear they know me but I can’t prove that. And then they drifted off over the horizon.” After 10 visits this winter and spring, the nest is still empty.
Getting to know golden eagles
Golden eagle Duchess is an ambassador at Wildlife Images Wildlife Images Rehabilitation & Education Center in Grants Pass.Weslee Neh
People might think they see a golden eagle flying overhead, but it is often mistaken for a similarly sized famous bird, a young bald eagle.
Keen eyesight or binoculars help tell the adults apart: The golden eagle has buff-colored feathers on its crown and nape of the neck, feathered (“booted”) legs and shiny, slate-colored beak, while the most pictured bird in the U.S., and the nation’s symbol, is the white-headed, white-tailed bald eagle with a yellow-orange beak.
Bald eagles primarily eat fish and live near water. Golden eagles, aerial predators that eat reptiles, birds and mammals, prefer cliffs or large trees granting unobstructed views of their surroundings.
Rarely do people get close to a golden eagle except at a licensed wildlife rehabilitation facility open to the public, like the 24-acre, nonprofit Wildlife Images Rehabilitation & Education Center in Grants Pass.
Wildlife native to Oregon hit by cars, injured by other forces, found sick or shot are taken to a wildlife rehabilitation facility. After they are treated, depending on the extent of the injury, most are returned to the wild.
Those that can’t be released due to their injuries or another situation, receive lifelong care at the facility. Some become “animal ambassadors” to educate the public about their need for protection.
Golden eagle Duchess has lived more than 20 years at Wildlife Images. “She watches people as a source of enrichment and entertainment” from inside a pen, said Kara DeShazo, the facility’s animal services manager.
When Duchess, who weighs about 11 pounds, is on DeShazo’s gloved arm held waist high, the top of the bird’s head is taller than DeShazo’s. Golden eagle females are larger than males.
Children visiting the center compare the golden eagle, with her broad, six-foot-long wings and fingerlike tips, to a “living” dinosaur. The bird seems like a pterodactyl, DeShazo said, who then explains that the eagle’s talons have the strength of a leopard’s jaws.
Duchess is fed fresh meat, which the staff offers to her or hides in the pen for her to act out her foraging instincts.
Her weight and health are monitored every day. “She’ll step up on a scale,” said Executive Director David Siddon, whose late father, J. David Siddon, founded Wildlife Images in 1981.
“Golden eagles seem to process things faster and better than bald eagles do,” Siddon said.
Golden eagles, like bald eagles, are protected by federal and state laws, yet when they take long glides in the sky, riding thermals, they become a target of opportunity to people who want to shoot at them.
Many of the dead eagles are analyzed in Ashland at the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, which investigate crimes committed against wildlife.
“The mentality of getting joy from shooting an eagle is beyond me,” said Siddon. “If we can help people form an attachment to wildlife, those people are more likely to be better stewards of nature.”
Going to great lengths
Wildlife biologist Rick Vetter goes to great lengths to check on golden eagles in their nests.Courtesy of Rick Vetter
On April 13, Vetter started his dawn-to-dusk field day with an obstacle: One of the roads was washed out by severe flooding that also forced the cancelation of Harney County’s 44th annual Migratory Bird Festival.
Vetter and his wife, Joan Suther, also a wildlife biologist, are known as “two of Harney County’s finest birders” and have been popular festival presenters for 35 years.
The rural road stopping Vetter was “obliterated,“ he said, with gushing water forming four-foot-deep trenches that even his Expedition’s Super Duty F-250 chassis couldn’t cross.
Then the day picked up: He, along with André Carvalhaes, an Ashland science teacher with a doctoral degree in ornithology from his native Brazil, and others in a private group, saw golden eagles and chicks at four consecutive stops, one in the remote Riverside Wildlife Area.
No eagles were seen at three nests near the Warm Springs Dam. “That broke our winning streak,” said a worried-looking Vetter. Then hope rose again. There is always a chance the pair built a new nest somewhere, he said. Proving that, however, will take him hours of searching.
Twice, the group, using binoculars or spotting scopes, didn’t see an eagle on the nest. Then an eagle flew overhead and the group followed it to an active nest that Vetter added to his field notes.
Near the South Fork Malheur River, patience again paid off. A white flash, a chick’s downy wing, was seen a quarter-mile away while looking through a spotting scope. “Had we blinked, we wouldn’t have seen it,” said Vetter.
Laying low inside the bowl-shaped nest were two hungry, fluffy white eaglets, aware one of their parents was flying in to feed them. They popped up, looked out into the world like wide-eyed sock puppets, then dropped down again. Seconds later, a golden eagle landed next to the nest, ripped up prey and meticulously fed it to the chicks.
Soon, the mate landed on the cliff. “This is a perfect show,” Vetter said. “I wish I could sit here all day in a lawn chair and watch.”
With that, he folded up the tripod for his scope and motioned the group to the Expedition, on to eight more sites.
His knees are shot, but he has postponed surgery until the chicks have fledged and he has returned from birding trips. For now, he’s right where he wants to be. “Most people spend their careers in the office,” he said. “I did not.”
He said his Expedition is his mobile office, which comes with an incredible view and sometimes frigid cold drafts or 100-degree desert winds or thousands of mosquitos.
Carvalhaes was impressed. “With Rick’s expertise and willingness to share his knowledge of birds and the environment, I was able to see 10 golden eagle on nests and observe chick behavior,” said Carvalhaes, who contributes to the National Audubon Society’s data collection during the annual Christmas Bird Count.
About an hour before sunset, the group drove up a hill behind Juntura to check on a nest four miles away. Clear atmospheric conditions, no wind and the sun low in the sky allowed them to use enhanced spotting scopes to see two chicks two feet apart in the nest.
“We’re done for the day with good results in most of the nests. I can’t complain,” said Vetter, who announced earlier that day that he is writing a book on the 2011-20 study of Oregon’s golden eagles.
He plans to devote a chapter each to birds, reptiles, mammals, humans, roads and conditions and “a chapter on gates because every gate is different,” he said, while rocking side to side in the driver’s seat of his rough and tumble Ford over a rocky stream. A thermos filled with gourmet oatmeal was secure in the cup holder.
He envisions a photo- and prose-filled coffee table book because no one wants to read a book about data on golden eagles, he said, before correcting himself. ”Well, maybe a few people do.”
— Janet Eastman covers design and trends. Reach her at 503-294-4072, [email protected] and follow her on X @janeteastman.