A family of migratory raptors that are protected under state and federal law have nested atop a light pole at Apple Valley (Minn.) High School, forcing the school to switch football and soccer games from night to day.
As reported by The Associated Press, turning on the sports lighting would have posed a fire hazard, as well as risked the wellbeing of the nesting ospreys.
“When you tell someone this story of ‘Wow, we have to reschedule because there’s an osprey nest in our stadium,’ they’re like, ‘You can’t make this type of stuff up, right?’ ” said Cory Hanson, athletic director at the school in the Minneapolis suburbs.
Working with the state Department of Natural Resources, the school has been monitoring what appear to be four chicks twice a week using a drone. Once the young ospreys are old enough and fly, crews will remove the nest and the Apple Valley Eagles can again stage games under the lights.
“Luckily for Apple Valley, they should be able to remove the nest within probably a week because the birds have already taken some of their first flights,” Heidi Cyr, the department’s non-game wildlife permit coordinator, said Friday, as reported by the AP's Mark Vancleave and Steve Karnowski.
The nest was first discovered in June. DNR officials confirmed it was an osprey nest, and told school officials that federal law made it clear that they could not disturb it for now.
Ospreys are one of the larger birds of prey that inhabit Minnesota. They typically build nests in high places with clear views, including dead old trees and structures that resemble them, like utility poles, channel markers and cellphone towers. Manmade platforms have helped restore the osprey population, and the birds were removed from Minnesota's special concern list 10 years ago.
The DNR issues a number of nest removal permits every year, but permission to remove nests that still hold young ospreys is normally denied unless there’s a major health and human safety concern, per the AP's reporting. Stadium lighting doesn’t qualify, Cyr said.
Hanson said school officials and the DNR will attempt to relocate the nest from the light tower to a new platform on school grounds in the hope that the parents will return next year.
"They’ll return to their nests every year and will build them up with new materials every season," Vancleave and Karnowski wrote. "Their nests can get as large as 10 feet deep (3 meters) and 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) in diameter. Their diet is almost exclusively live fish. They’ll dive from high altitudes to grab fish with their sharp talons, plunging as deep as 3 feet (1 meter) underwater."
School officials also plan to erect deterrents on the lights so the ospreys don’t try to nest there again.
Meanwhile, Hanson said other schools have been very accommodating when it comes to finding alternate game sites and start times.
