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Just one year after the CWA took effect, a survey of eagle nests found just 20 throughout the state. Today, there are at least 19 in Door County alone.

Yet even with the Clean Water Act, pesticides remain an issue.

“The CWA regulates the discharge of pollutants to navigable waters from point sources,” Kent said. “But pesticides were not technically pollutants or waste because they were considered products intentionally applied to crops. In addition, they are separately regulated under FIFRA.” The pesticide debate continues today.

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But, thanks to state and federal legislation enacted more than a half century ago, bald eagles are back in Wisconsin, in part because their food sources are healthier. Still, challenges remain. The Wisconsin DNR does toxicology tests on young eagles in Wisconsin’s Northwoods (Vilas County) and compares those findings to what they find in the Fox River and lower Green Bay.

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“As we see more pollutants decrease in our water system, we see fewer other toxins,” Martinez said. “Eagle populations are rebounding as a result of that. There are still some toxin levels in our system down here. As you get away from the lower bay, especially in northern Door County, sources are much healthier.”

Remember that last active eagle nest on Toft’s Point? Erdman is proud to report that it was the first Door County nest to be reoccupied during the early 1990s, and there are now eagle nests in every Wisconsin county.

More pelicans and bald eagles can be an overall indicator of a healthier ecosystem.

“Both pelicans and bald eagles are pretty much top tier in the food chain,” Hults said. “When you start seeing increases in populations, a lot of times people focus on just that particular animal.

“Ultimately, what that means is that the entire ecosystem is significantly healthier. [It’s] that whole food-chain thing: The little critters have to be healthy, and they feed the medium critters, and then the medium critters feed the big critters. So often that gets overlooked.”

Hults pointed out that even controversial topics such as climate change can affect the eagle population.

“There is a lot less seasonal movement in the eagles right now because we have a lot more open water than, historically, we’ve had in the winter,” he said.

“As a result, the eagles don’t have to leave Door County [for] as long or as frequently to find food in the winter as they did 20 or 30 years ago.”

Healthy eagles are able to raise their young and produce more fledglings, and more fledglings are able to come back year after year to reproduce. It takes about five years for a bald eagle to mature and breed.

“Before we started pumping pollutants into our rivers, before settlement, eagle populations were very high [in Wisconsin],” Martinez said. “We continually find new nests, new nest locations [each year], which tells us that the population is continuing to grow, and they have not hit a ceiling at this point.”

A factor that could limit the population growth may be the eagles themselves: eagle pairs interacting with other eagle pairs. Eagles like space, so for them, nests that are two miles apart can feel a little crowded.

“Their territories are going to have to get smaller and smaller,” Martinez said, “so birds are going to have to get comfortable with neighbors.”

Eagles and Pelicans Build Awareness

Perhaps it’s their size. Hults says the increase in bald eagles and white pelicans has generated more interest in and awareness in all Door County birds. “If somebody doesn’t have some personal connection or some familiarity with an animal in the wild,” Hults said, “you might as well see them on TV. When [people] can drive around Door County and see a flock of pelicans circling up above or see an eagle perched somewhere, it gives them more of a personal connection.

“That creates interest, and that indirectly affects us and what we do at the sanctuary because it gets people jazzed up about the environment. It creates questions, they come to a place like us to get answers.”

Open Door Bird Sanctuary is a private nonprofit organization that started in 2011 and occupies 34 acres on County I just south of Jacksonport.

“Our mission is giving a home to raptors that have been injured and have a disability from their injury that prevents them from surviving on their own in the wild,” Hults said. “When they come to our sanctuary, we give them a forever home.”

It’s also a place for education.

“People come to the sanctuary and get a close personal experience with a little owl or a great big bald eagle or a golden eagle,” Hults said. “The tiny, little adorable ones or the great big, massive ones – they’re the ones that catch everybody’s attention.

“Our bottom line is to create better environmental stewards.”

Bald eagles and American white pelicans certainly seem to be doing their part to help out.