BAYVIEW, Idaho - Wildlife officials say within the last five years the kokanee salmon population in Lake Pend Orielle has just exploded, which means bald eagles are flocking to that lake just as much as the birds' usual spot at Wolf Lodge Bay on Lake Coeur d'Alene.
"We just sat up there and there was a flock of eight of them just flying around and sitting in the trees," said Lake Pend Oreille bird watcher Sean Stevens
He and his wife usually drive from Spokane to Lake Coeur d'Alene to check out the birds, but not this year.
"We heard it [Lake Pend Oreille] was better than Lake Coeur d'Alene this year,' said Stevens.
Bureau of Land Management biologists don't have a hard count of the number of eagles feasting on spawning kokanee on Lake Pend Oreille, but say that the numbers have grown over the past few years.
The salmon appear to be the reason.
"There's so much food here, why would they go someplace else?" asked Bayview resident Ralph Jones.
According to Idaho Fish and Game, the kokanee population in Lake Pend Oreille is ten times larger now than it was just five years ago. That's due to aggressive efforts by the department over the past few years to restock the fish and get rid of predators like lake trout.
The numbers of eagles are expected to continue to rise in Bayview over the next couple of weeks.
After they feast here, the birds will continue to migrate south to places like Utah and Nevada.
