Birds of prey photos racked up thousands of likes on a local state park’s Facebook page.
They’re all part of a study that Penn State Dubois students are involved in.
Cameras were set up to capture photos of golden eagles.
“We had one at Parker Dam State Park, the Elk Country Visitor Center, and one at a private property outside of Ridgeway and it’s been a great success,” explained Wildlife Technology Instructor Keely Roen. “We’ve had golden eagles, as well as bald eagles, bobcats, coyotes, ravens.
From January through March, students studied the bird through the photos. The most popular site was Parker Dam State Park.
“They were combing through photos and posting the best ones on their Facebook site and they had hundreds if not over a thousand likes and shares almost every week,” Roen said.
The sites were chosen specifically to attract the birds with heavily forested areas with small clearings. That’s where the cameras were set up with bait, roadkill deer.
“We spent a lot of time on route 80 or on side roads picking up dear and people were looking at us like we were crazy,” exclaimed Roen. “We’re in the Penn State truck you know bunch of students and couple of trying to drag deer off the road they were probably wandering what we were doing.”
Roen’s favorite part of the study was comparing their results to the other sites on the east coast.
“It doesn’t just tell you golden eagles are there, we have a potential to find out how many golden eagles are visiting the site and I think one of the neatest park of the project for me is following the information from the other sites. Comparing what are the West Virginia sites getting, what are the main sites getting what are these sites getting? What are they picking up.”
Thousands of photos featured other species.
“We had bobcat drama at the Glendale site, bobcats all the time. Having bobcat kittens at the Elk Country Visitor Center site was wildly popular. Students were very excited about seeing the bobcat kittens that was alot of fun.”
Penn State Dubois plans to continue working with the golden eagle project next year to learn more about the birds and their habitats.
