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LACKAWAXEN TWP. - When Dimitri Zaimes opened his shop at the confluence of the Lackawaxen and Delaware rivers about 25 years ago, the state's bald eagle population was teetering on the brink of extinction.

As few as three active bald eagle nests remained in 1983 - the species diminished, in part, because of polluted bodies of water.

Over the past 16 years, Mr. Zaimes has watched the population make a comeback. Staring into a telescope set up near the shop's dining room windows in 1997, he saw adult eagles build a nest in a tree towering over the Lackawaxen, and over the years raise and feed 36 eaglets.

"If you saw an eagle (25 years ago), it was an event," said Mr. Zaimes, owner of Two River Junction in Pike County. "Now there's no end of them around here."

Statewide, researchers confirmed 266 nesting pairs as of mid-August, up from the 237 documented in 2012 and dozens more than those existing in the 1990s and early 2000s, a Pennsylvania Game Commission release said.

The surging bald eagle population prompted Pennsylvania game officials in August to consider upgrading the species' status from threatened to protected, in effect removing the eagle from a list of species deemed vulnerable to endangerment in the near future.

"It (bald eagle population) just keeps growing, and we're seeing it here in Northeast Pennsylvania, too," said William Williams, information and education supervisor at the Pennsylvania Game Commission Northeast Regional Office. "It's to a point where they are a pretty common sight along our major waterways."

Once scarce, the bald eagle population has rebounded in Northeast Pennsylvania as well, with high concentrations nesting in large white pines or hemlock trees along the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers, explained Northeast Regional Wildlife Management Biologist Kevin Wenner.

As a result, eagle watching has become an increasingly popular recreational opportunity among bird enthusiasts and landowners.

"People find it very rewarding to get the opportunity to see one, watch a nest site or observe young eagles in a nest," he said. "There's a feeling of patriotism."

Mr. Williams credits the bald eagle's resurgence to laws like as the 1972 Clean Water Act that addressed water pollution and a "hacking model" program that involved bringing young eaglets from Saskatchewan and raising them in Pennsylvania.

By the 1960s, the bald eagle population had greatly diminished because bodies of water where eagles went to get their food were polluted with different pesticides, including DDT, a toxic chemical carried by water that can accumulate in a fish tissues, he said.

The DDT passed from fish to the bald eagles, and the chemical thinned the shells of the eagles' eggs, causing the eggs to break and restricting their ability to reproduce.

"It wiped them out," Mr. Williams said. "The Clean Water Act was critical because it cleared up the waterways."

Using what is known as a "hacking model," game commission staff brought eaglets to two spots in Pennsylvania: along the Susquehanna River just outside the Harrisburg area and Shohola Lake in Pike County, Mr. Williams said.

The eaglets were raised with very limited human interaction until they were ready to fledge, he said.

"Over the years, they started to return and breed, and the population just continued to rise," Mr. Williams said. "I expect it to continue to do so."

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