Peace and Maltese’s four peregrine falcon children are doing well atop the County-City Building in South Bend, but they’re not the only ones thriving in Indiana.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources says they’ve banded 40 peregrine falcon chicks across Indiana in 2017, up eight from 2016.
Chicks have been born in South Bend, Michigan City, East Chicago, Gary, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Petersburg, Terre Haute, and Wheatfield. And that’s just the chicks that the DNR knows of. Officials feel there are more babies that haven’t been spotted yet.
Unlike many birds, peregrine falcons like to nest in urban and industrial areas, such as the smoke stacks along Lake Michigan and power plants. And in places like South Bend, biologists have taken the time to build sheltered nest sites for them.
Peregrine falcons were once considered endangered, but were removed from the federal endangered species list in 1999 and in Indiana in 2013 thanks to conservation efforts and the diminished use of pesticides, which contributed to the species’ significant drop in population in the 1960s.
So how are Peace and Maltese’s kids in South Bend doing? See for yourself below!
