TERF03 (tracked 1/4/19 – 7/5/20) - Hancock Wildlife Foundation

TERF03 (tracked 1/4/19 – 7/5/20)

HWF tracked bald eagle TERF03 was tagged and banded on January 4, 2019, at the OWL (Orphaned Wildlife) Rehabilitation Society facility in Delta, BC. She appeared to be female, which was confirmed by a blood test; her USFW band number is 0709-00332 and she has a more readable black/yellow band on her left leg with the characters E over 0. She was a mature adult when banded, so more than 5 years old. OWL staff found her fighting with TEUS03 on November 26, 2018, and were able to separate the two eagles after almost 40 minutes of fighting and bring them back for treatment.

Please visit our Hancock Wildlife Forum thread for more information about what TERF03 was doing in the year and a half that we followed her travels.

Update -TERF03 stayed in the greater Delta area until July 2019, then headed to the Alaskan Panhandle for the summer/fall salmon runs. She started heading down the coast in November, arriving back in Delta by December 24th. She stayed more or less near the Delta landfill until July 4th, 2020, when she began heading north again. Her last update was July 5th; something may have happened to her, but it seems more likely that the tracker stopped functioning. There’s a more in-depth summary of her travels further down on the page.

I think the photo is from January 4, 2019, when she was banded at OWL.

Summary of Travels (last updated February 6, 2023)

TERF03 wasn’t tagged until January 4, 2019, but if you use the calendar feature to look back to see where the tracker was on a certain date, you’ll find that the transmitter was turned on almost a year earlier, on January 19, 2018; it was checking in fairly consistently from near the Hancock Wildlife office, so I’m guessing folks there were doing some testing before it was finally deployed. ~JudyB
Received tracker January 4 2019 at the OWL (Orphaned Wildlife) Rehabilitation Society facility in Delta, BC
She seemed to be based in the general area near the Vancouver Landfill in Delta, wandering a few kilometers in various directions until mid-April 2019
From around April 20 until the beginning of July 2019, she continued to spend most of her time in Delta but made occasional day trips in various directions, generally going no further than 30 kilometers/18 miles from her home base
On July 3rd she began a journey north, crossing over Howe Sound, then heading up the coast, passing Powell River on July 5th and crossing onto the Alaskan Panhandle on July 10
She paused for a few days here and there, but continued heading up the coast, crossing to the top of Admiralty Island (not far from Juneau) on August 8; she explored the northern part of Admiralty Island through September 25th
TERF03 then flew almost 150 km/90 mi to an area on the Chilkat River, just south of the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve and the town of Klukwan, and stayed there exploring what is likely a great place for salmon from September 26 to November 9, 2019.
When she checked in on November 10, she was a bit over 200 km/130 mi down the coast, on the mainland across from the lower half of Admiralty Island; she made her way down the coast, stopping here and there for a few days, until she arrived inland from Wrangell on November 26.
She was back in BC, inland and a bit south of Prince Rupert on the 27th, and made her way down the coast, stopping here and there along the way, and arriving in Sechelt on December 20, 2019
By December 24, she was back in Delta – home for the holidays!
Her activity during the winter, spring and early summer was similar to the year before, moving around quite a bit but mostly staying within 10 km of the landfill with a few brief longer excursions until the morning of July 4, 2020
On July 5th, 2020 she was headed up the coast, near Mt Tantalus; her final data upload was 11 am on July 5, just across Jervis Inlet, maybe 35 km inland from Powell River. Anything might have happened, but knowing that she was a full adult in a reasonably remote area, it seems likely that after over 2-1/2 years, the tracker stopped functioning.