{"id":6231,"date":"2016-02-28T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T17:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/federal-agency-investigates-removal-of-eagle-nest-near-sitka\/"},"modified":"2016-02-28T09:00:34","modified_gmt":"2016-02-28T17:00:34","slug":"federal-agency-investigates-removal-of-eagle-nest-near-sitka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/federal-agency-investigates-removal-of-eagle-nest-near-sitka\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal agency investigates removal of eagle nest near Sitka"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>SITKA \u2014<\/strong> U.S. wildlife officials are investigating the removal of a federally protected eagle nest from land being developed near Sitka after the public raised concerns.<\/p>\n<p>The tree containing the nest stood near the Rocky Gutierrez Airport on Alice Island, where Shee Atika Corp. sought permission to develop a subdivision, the Sitka Sentinel reported Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s website said the tree was recently removed with a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which grants them in some circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo eagles were present and no eagles were harmed during the nest removal process,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>Andrea Mederios, a spokeswoman for the federal agency, did not say whether a permit had been issued at the site and declined to provide further details.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn order to protect the integrity of the investigation, we cannot talk about the case,\u201d Mederios said in an email to the newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>The tree is mentioned in documents from an August 2015 Sitka Planning Commission meeting when Shee Atika requested approval for the subdivision. The request was pulled before a commission review, but planning department staff wrote a report about the site.<\/p>\n<p>It said \u201ca juvenile eagle and nest\u201d had been observed \u201cin an existing tree north to the Sealing Cove Business Center.\u201d The report also noted that the company knew about eagle nest regulations and was \u201cactively pursuing the necessary permits, permit conditions, and complying with state and federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Staff recommended that approval be granted only if Shee Atika complied with laws around eagle breeding areas.<\/p>\n<p>Bald eagles are protected under the 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which prohibits disrupting an eagle\u2019s normal breeding or sheltering behavior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SITKA \u2014 U.S. wildlife officials are investigating the removal of a federally protected eagle nest from land being developed near Sitka after the public raised concerns. The tree containing the nest stood near the Rocky Gutierrez Airport on Alice Island, where Shee Atika Corp. sought permission to develop a subdivision, the Sitka Sentinel reported Wednesday. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6231"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}