{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Potter Valley eagles' nest to remain standing","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":388,"description":"January 17, 2022 — Neighbors and bird-watchers successfully faced down PG&E to defend a bald eagle’s nest in Potter Valley last week. On Wednesday night, Tim Bray, a kzyx programmer and member of the Mendocino Coast Audubon Society, sent out an alert that PG&E planned to cut down the aging Ponderosa Pine that contains the nest, located on a road that runs parallel to the Eel River, not far from Van Arsdale Dam. Bald eagles are no longer on the endangered species list, though they are federally protected. \r\nPG&E biologists monitor the area extensively, as part of the licensing requirements for the Potter Valley Project, and their records show the nest has been used since 2011. It is common for bald eagles to build alternate nest sites, and according to PG&E, this pair last used its other nest in 2016. Locals, including Joseph West, a tenant on the property hosting the main nest, say it’s been there for decades. “Lately, I’ve been watching them for seven, eight days, bringing material into the nest,” he reported on Thursday. “I've seen the female sitting above it quite often, looking down into it. They’ve definitely decided that this is where they want to spend their nesting season. They’ve been using this tree, I’d say three out of five years, for the past 25 years”\r\nBut the tree is in decline and close to a distribution line, which PG&E argued posed an imminent fire threat. Joseph Seidell, another tenant on the property, reported the company for poaching. “We’re in full belief that this is a nesting pair, there could be eggs in the nest, they haven’t told us that there’s not,” he explained early Thursday. “So therefore I felt impelled to make a claim that these birds were going to be killed, or poached…and I was able to call CalTip and report that PG&E was going to take this nest down.”\r\nHe also hired an independent arborist who examined the tree and concluded that, while it does show signs of a beetle infestation, it shows no signs of structural deficiencies...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}