Two California bald eagle eggs have passed their normal incubation time and may never hatch, experts said.
The eggs in a nest at Big Bear Lake have been seen daily on streaming video from a camera positioned at the nest, The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported Friday.
The eggs most likely contain dead offspring, although they are still being attended by their parents, Jackie and Shadow, the U.S. Forest Service said.
“It’s hard to say this, but the odds of our Big Bear bald eagle nest’s eggs will hatch this year are diminishing each day,” Zach Behrens, public affairs officer for the San Bernardino National Forest, wrote in a social media post.
“At this point, we’ll be very (pleasantly) surprised if either egg hatches,” Behrens wrote.
Bald eagle eggs hatch in about 35 to 38 days. But the Big Bear eggs were laid more than 40 days ago, Behrens said.
Even giving an extra day or two for slow development from cold temperatures, “the window of successful hatching is closing,” he wrote.
U.S. & World
Forest Service biologists expected to see a pip, or a crack, in at least one of the eggs by now indicating an eaglet is alive and emerging, Behrens said.
