WABASHA, Minn., Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Bird lovers said many more golden eagles are migrating to Wisconsin for the winter than previously believed.
Scott Mehus, the education director of the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minn., worked on a hunch the birds might be more numerous than originally thought. He collected a group of volunteers to try to spot them in Wisconsin and Minnesota, near the Mississippi River, the Wisconsin State Journal reports.
The search resulted in spotting dozens of golden eagles every year for the last five years, the newspaper said.
Based on those results, Audubon Minnesota, the National Eagle Center and the departments of Natural Resources in Minnesota and Wisconsin this year started a three-year study of golden eagles' biology and management needs.
"This is a pretty special population to us in the Midwest, and we want to make sure everything is being done to conserve this population and hopefully make it grow," said Mark Peterson, executive director of Audubon Minnesota.
The researchers said they were astonished to discover at least one of the eagles summers above the Arctic Circle.
