Even when the trees and nests survived, many of the eggs or chicks in them did not.
Twenty or 30 years ago, such a blow would have been disaster for the state's birds. Today eagles have rebounded so dramatically from near-extinction in Maine and other states that the destructive spring weather is expected to be only a brief setback in their continuing expansion, including into southern Maine.
Bald eagles have come so far, in fact, that the species is widely expected to be taken off the federal endangered species list next month. State officials also hope to take the bird off Maine's protected list soon afterward, and they are working to set up long-term conservation agreements to protect Maine nests once the core regulatory protections are lifted.
"We thought we were going to lose the whole population," said Ray "Bucky" Owen, a retired wildlife biology professor and former Department Inland Fisheries and Wildlife director. "They're now in every county in the state and continue to expand. It's a super success story."
The eagle population nationwide was decimated by DDT and other pesticides, which caused eggshells to crack and reproduction to fail. Adult eagles also were killed in traps and by people who shot at them.
By 1963, there were only 417 nesting pairs of bald eagles counted in the lower 48 states.
Maine had about 35 pairs in the early 1970s, although those eagles produced only about six eaglets each year because of the effects of pesticides. Almost all of Maine's remaining eagles nested around Cobscook Bay at the eastern tip of the state.
Eagles were added to the federal endangered species list in 1967. DDT was banned in 1972, 10 years after naturalist Rachel Carson, in her book "Silent Spring," raised alarms about the chemical.
For nearly two decades starting in the 1960s, Owen and other biologists worked intensively to rescue the birds in Maine. They got a zoo to supply eggs from captive eagles. Then they put them into nests so wild birds would incubate them. They also brought in fledgling eagles, which were successfully adopted and raised by the Maine birds.
They put out uncontaminated food to keep the existing birds nourished -- more than 100,000 pounds of meat from moose, cows, horses, beavers and other animals, according to Owen.
"There was nothing we could do to increase reproduction, but we could decrease mortality," he said. "Even losing a bird or two was significant back then."
They even rebuilt the wing of one eagle that had been shot. Owen and other biologists used the feathers from a dead eagle they had in a freezer and successfully transplanted them.
"We actually cut the feathers off and super-glued a dowel (into the injured eagle's wing) and then glued a feather on the dowel at the right angle," he said. The bird eventually flew away and was seen a year later eating at a feeding station, according to Owen.
SUSTAINED ANNUAL INCREASE
Pesticide regulations eventually had the intended effect and, by the late 1980s, eagles started reproducing at a healthier rate.
"We have been experiencing about an 8 percent annual increase for 20 years now," said Charlie Todd, biologist with Maine's Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
Last year, Maine biologists counted 414 breeding pairs, more than in all other Northeastern states combined. Nationally, the number has climbed to 9,789, according to the latest federal count.
The bald eagle was upgraded from endangered to threatened in 1995. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed in 1999 that the bird be removed from the list. The deadline for that decision is June 29.
Todd and other Maine officials are finishing their annual spring survey of Maine's eagle population and have taken more than 30 survey flights...
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