The history of nesting Peregrine Falcons in
Massachusetts in some ways parallels that
of Bald Eagles, except that the record is
clearer and the documentation for the local
demise more complete. In Birds of Massachusetts
and Other New England States
(1927), Forbush depicted the location of
11 historic Peregrine Falcon aeries. During
the course of his duties to protect Massachusetts
Peregrine Falcons from egg collectors
and falconers in the 1930s, State Ornithologist
Joseph A. Hagar visited most of the sites
described by Forbush, in addition to locating four new aeries that had never been documented
previously. By the 1940s, the threats
had diminished considerably; however,
beginning late in that decade, Hagar began to
notice a significant decline in falcon productivity.
Eventually, eggshell thinning was
documented, and DDT was identified as the causative agent, just as it had been for
declining Bald Eagle populations during the
same period. By the mid-1950s, reproduction
by Massachusetts Peregrine Falcons had
ceased.
In an effort to restore the beleaguered
Peregrine Falcon population, in 1973 the
Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology initiated
a captive breeding program that would
eventually make it possible to return captive-raised Peregrine Falcons to the wild. Early attempts with this technique at Mount
Tom in Massachusetts during the late 1970s
were unsuccessful. Starting in 1984, a
different approach was attempted when six
young Peregrine Falcons were placed in a
hacking tower atop Boston’s McCormack
Building. Although the success of some of
these initial hacking attempts was mixed,
1989, after six years of hacking efforts,
wild Peregrine Falcons started nesting
once again in Boston and Springfield. By
1999, there was a successful nesting pair in
Boston, Suffolk County; Springfield,
Hampden County; and Fall River, Bristol
County.
