An Incredible Livestream of a Fledgling Peregrine Falcon Family Nesting on Alcatraz Island

The Park Conservancy of the National Park Service has set up a livestream of a wild peregrine falcon family that has nested on Alcatraz Island. Viewers can watch the fledgling chicks grow under the watchful eye of their doting mother. This was the second time that peregrine falcons nested on Alcatraz Island in recorded history. The first was in 2023.

Peregrine Falcons have nested again on Alcatraz Island! Tune into the livestream from the Rock to see the fledgling family grow before your very eyes.

Peregrines were once popular in the San Francisco Bay Area, but their numbers were greatly reduced in the 1970s due to insecticides, construction, and loss of habitat. They were once considered endangered, Since that time, protection laws have been passed and biologists and conservationists have worked to foster and propagate these beautiful and incredibly nimble birds.

By the 1970s, Peregrine Falcons were greatly reduced around the world because of the widespread use the pesticides, like DDT, after WWII, and even classified as Endangered in the U.S. and other countries. A thorough statewide California nesting survey in 1970 yielded only two Peregrine nests. After a quarter-century of Peregrine Falcon conservation efforts in North America and the Environmental Protection Agency bans on DDT in the U.S., Peregrine populations seemed to rebound by the late 1990s. The species was delisted from Endangered status in 1999. Today there are hundreds of nesting pairs of Peregrines in California alone.

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