{"id":595131,"date":"2026-08-16T15:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T15:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/595131\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T15:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T15:28:08","slug":"awed-by-nature-fans-mourn-californias-beloved-jackie-the-bald-eagle-whose-legacy-soars-on-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/595131\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Awed by nature\u2019: fans mourn California\u2019s beloved Jackie the bald eagle, whose legacy soars on | California"},"content":{"rendered":"

The bald eagle Jackie made her home on the shore of southern California\u2019s Big Bear Lake for most of her 14 years. But her death<\/a> earlier this week drew international attention.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Times described<\/a> her as \u201carguably the world\u2019s most famous bald eagle\u201d. For years, millions of people tuned into a live stream of Jackie\u2019s nest, watching her rear her eaglets, work out life with her mate, Shadow, and, perhaps most memorably, incubate her eggs while almost completely buried in snow.<\/p>\n

She developed a massive following of devoted fans who tuned in day after day. And she became a pioneer of non-profit fundraising, showing the conservation movement a new path to reaching the broader public and connecting people directly with nature.<\/p>\n

Following Jackie\u2019s death on Monday, Friends of Big Bear Valley, the environmental education non-profit that manages the live stream, received thousands of comments and emails from people sharing what the eagle meant to them, said Jenny Voisard, the group\u2019s media manager.<\/p>\n

Jackie the bald eagle at the San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center in San Dimas, California, on 18 July 2026.. Photograph: Los Angeles county parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center\/AP<\/p>\n

On social media fan pages, people swapped their favorite stories about Jackie and shared how watching her and Shadow helped them in their most difficult moments.<\/p>\n

Trisha Dale Green, a local wildlife photographer who has been observing eagles for nearly two decades, runs a Facebook page sharing her photos of the raptors to about 177,000 followers. She closely documented Jackie, witnessing first-hand how unique she was, with her meticulous grooming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese eagles have changed many people\u2019s lives, including my own,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Gloria Ackman, a retired English teacher in southern Illinois, had occasionally tuned in for years. But after her husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer in February 2025, the couple began watching constantly. The cameras offered a glimpse of another world, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese magnificent eagles face so many challenges. Yet they stayed focused on each other, on their eaglets and on survival,\u201d Ackman said. \u201cIt was just so inspirational, their determination and resilience. I like to think that we embraced those qualities ourselves as we were dealing with the hardest thing we\u2019ve ever had to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackie brought people together, Ackman said, and that will be her legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what your politics are, what your religion is, what your country is \u2013 you can look at these eagles and just be awed by nature,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

People connected with the animals, said Beth Pratt, the regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation and a conservation leader, as they did with the mountain lion P-22<\/a> and Flaco the owl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reminds us of the wildness inside [us],\u201d Pratt said. \u201cThere\u2019s something about us that craves a connection to that. It does bring us really powerful meaning, to watch that play out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thousands of people followed Jackie and her family via a live stream. Photograph: Los Angeles county parks San Dimas Raptor Rescue Center\/AP<\/p>\n

And like P-22 with the Annenberg Wildlife<\/a> Crossing, Jackie and Shadow inspired conservation efforts. Friends of Big Bear Valley raised $10m in funding this year, including a $5.5m donation from OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, to permanently conserve land on the lake.<\/p>\n

The group fundraised for months to buy a 63-acre (25-hectare) plot of land, known as Moon Camp, that serves as a key ecological corridor and included the \u201clast undisturbed shoreline\u201d on the lake. The effort received more than 25,000 donations totaling almost $5m, as well as the Brockmans\u2019 contribution.<\/p>\n

\u201cJackie\u2019s legacy is assured at this point. She really soared high for her kind,\u201d Pratt said.<\/p>\n

After the death of Ackman\u2019s husband in December, she kept tuning into the live stream. She celebrated when Jackie and Shadow laid a second clutch after the first was eaten by ravens earlier this year. And, in Jackie\u2019s absence, she\u2019s continued to watch Shadow carry on without his mate.<\/p>\n

\u201cShadow is standing tall there on the pine, looking out over Big Bear, and seeing his big, beautiful world, and that gives me that inspiration to carry on and still see that beauty,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bald eagle Jackie made her home on the shore of southern California\u2019s Big Bear Lake for most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-595131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}