Big Bear Valley eagle cam gets the New Yorker treatment after a turbulent year

Staff writer Alex Ross profiled the beloved bald eagle nest near Big Bear Lake, capturing Jackie's death, a habitat victory, and the prospect of a new mate for Shadow.

The Big Bear Valley eagle cam — a live feed trained on a bald eagle nest in the San Bernardino Mountains — has earned national recognition in a feature published by The New Yorker. The piece by staff writer Alex Ross traced the full arc of what he called an "aquiline epic": years of eaglets hatching and fledging, a beloved eagle's sudden illness and death, a hard-won conservation win, and the tentative arrival of a potential new mate for the male eagle Shadow.[1]

A community effort, now a national story

Friends of Big Bear Valley (F.O.B.B.V.), the local nonprofit that installed the camera in 2015, has built the feed into one of the most-watched wildlife streams in the world, drawing as many as 100,000 simultaneous viewers at peak moments such as hatching or fledging.[1] This nesting season brought two more eaglets: Luna and Sandy, the latter named in memory of Sandy Steers, F.O.B.B.V.'s longtime executive director who died in February.[1]

The organization also notched a major conservation victory this summer, raising enough money to protect land near the nest that had been threatened by a planned residential development called Moon Camp — a project that would have been situated less than a mile from the nesting pine and could have driven the eagles away for good.[1]

Jackie's death and its aftermath

Just as news of the Moon Camp land protection broke, the cam's loyal audience watched Jackie disappear from the feed, then struggle in the lake after a confrontation with visiting eagles. She was taken to the Ojai Raptor Center, where she was diagnosed with severe anemia and received a CT scan and a blood donation from an eagle in Bakersfield. She died on the night of August 9.[1]

The grief among the cam's global following quickly turned ugly for the Ojai Raptor Center: the facility was bombarded with intrusive calls, and conspiracy theorists accused staff of manipulating information to secure donations.[1] The center's own account of its efforts to save Jackie — and how staff responded to the harassment — was not detailed in the New Yorker piece, leaving that chapter of the story still to be told fully.

A new chapter for Shadow

Since Jackie's passing, a four-year-old banded eagle named KD1 — nicknamed Kaydee — has been seen perching near Shadow and visiting the nest. Now believed to be of nesting age, Kaydee could become Shadow's new mate heading into the upcoming season.[1]

Anyone curious to follow along can tune into the F.O.B.B.V. live feed at any time; though the nesting season has ended, the organization posts daily recaps and the cameras remain active. Watch for updates as the next nesting season approaches to see whether Shadow and Kaydee make it official.