To say it’s been an eventful couple of weeks for the world-famous bald eagles of Big Bear Valley, California, would be a drastic understatement.
The news surrounding these beloved birds has soared both high and low. Fundraising was secured to preserve their habitat while Jackie, the matriarch, remains in critical but stable condition at the Ojai Raptor Center.
Fast Company spoke this week with the nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV), the organization behind the live nest cameras that introduced these amazing creatures to the world back in 2015.
Media manager Jenny Voisard and her team have felt a wide range of human emotions while working toward larger conservation goals.
What’s going on with Jackie?
Since July 4, something was off with Jackie.
“We had noticed that she hadn’t been to the nest very much since the fireworks,” Voisard explains. “We’d only seen her once, and that was on the 12th. She wasn’t quite herself. She wasn’t behaving the way she normally behaved. You could tell she was very clearly starving.”
In addition to not being quite herself, Jackie got into multiple fights with a couple of visiting sub-adult eagles.
Each time, she was able to defend herself, but on Friday, July 17, she was on the ground and didn’t fly away after a tussle. Concerned citizens stayed with her at a safe distance and worked tirelessly to find a rescue.
On Saturday, July 18, at 2 a.m. the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation’s San Dimas Raptor Rescue team was able to help Jackie.
The rescuers were able to get in touch with FOBBV. That same day, Jackie transferred to the Ojai Raptor Center, where she remains today.
It was there her care team discovered she was suffering from severe anemia and inflammation of the kidneys. As of publication, the underlying cause of these conditions has not been discovered.
On Monday, the center announced an increase in her packed cell volume, a measure of the percentage of red blood cells in the bloodstream. While her numbers are still abnormal, they are trending in a positive direction, which is a good sign. Despite this, Jackie still remains in critical condition while people around the world root for her recovery.
No one is rooting harder than the team at FOBBV.
“It’s been an extremely difficult time for our team,” Voisard says. “At the same time, Jackie’s probably getting the best healthcare in our country right now. We’re all very happy that she’s there.”
What about the other eagles?
In many ways, Jackie and her mate Shadow’s love story is more entertaining than a Love Island episode. It’s very easy to anthropomorphize these birds, but nature works under a different set of rules.
“Shadow doesn’t quite know what’s happening,” Voisard stated. “He’s being a dad and he’s with [their offspring] Sandy and Luna, and they’re moving further and further away from the nest.”
Some fans were angry with Shadow for appearing to cozy up with one of the female sub-adults in the area. Voisard isn’t too worried. She explained that Shadow isn’t initiating this and the other sub-adult is too young to mate.
“Shadow’s hormones won’t change until December or January. So he views this as an intruder,” she reassured fans.
No one can predict what would happen if Jackie and Shadow were reunited, but this isn’t the first time this has happened in the wider bald eagle world.
“There’s been so many documented cases of reuniting native pairs back together that we’re really hopeful,” Voisard says.
What’s going on with Moon Camp?
While Jackie continues to fight for her life, FOBBV has reached a big fundraising milestone. The nonprofit was able to raise over $10 million to preserve nearly 63 acres near the bald eagle’s nest.
The funds were raised through 25,000 different small transactions and an over $5.5 million donation by Anna and Greg Brockman. Greg Brockman just so happens to be the cofounder and president of OpenAI.
“I would say I am beyond grateful to them,” Voisard says.
It was Anna Brockman who was the mastermind behind the large donation. Her team reached out to Voisard because she is a big fan of Jackie and Shadow.
Voisard was happy to surprise the larger team with the good news, especially in the midst of Jackie’s struggles.
“Conservation is so hard,” Voisard says. “It’s not easy, and everybody just came together . . . It really helped restore faith for a lot of people in humanity.”
How can fans stay involved?
This isn’t the end of Jackie, Shadow, Luna, or Sandy’s story. It is part of a larger conversation about being good stewards of our environment.
“People can stay involved by caring about conservation and about habitat,” Voisard says. “What we did was save real estate for wildlife and give them a little slice of space that’s not populated. They can donate to our organization or the land trust.”
The San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust will preserve the Moon Camp property in perpetuity. It will not be developed but allowed to remain wild. Originally, the trust was going to turn over the land to the Forest Service, but a change in environmental protection laws made the organization switch paths.
What can we learn from this?
Jackie and Shadow have already taught fans many life lessons. “We all rallied over Jackie. We rallied over Moon Camp. We can work together in community,” Voisard says.
Love for nature, she adds, can be a great unifying force in an increasingly divided world. Voisard is personally proud of saving thousands of trees from being cut down.
“I can’t explain the feeling,” she says. “I feel really connected to them right now and I feel very protective of them.”
“We just have to keep moving forward and being resilient no matter what happens,” Voisard adds. “We can’t predict the outcomes of what’s going to happen with Jackie, Shadow, the sub-adult, or anything in nature. All we do is learn about it, care about it, and use the lessons that it gives us.”
