Things are taking off for the peregrines of Yosemite. With 7 new nest sites and 23 fledglings, 2025 was a record-breaking year for the national park’s falcons.
Peregrine falcons, famously, are the fastest bird on Earth, reaching speeds of over 320kph (200mph) when they dive-bomb their prey.
The birds were doing well, until farmers began using DDT as a pesticide in the 1950s. The chemical worked its way up the food chain into the peregrines, where it caused severe eggshell thinning. Populations plummeted and, in 1973, the peregrine became one of the first species to be listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Peregrines were thought to be all but gone from Yosemite. Then in 1978, two rock climbers discovered a pair nesting on the face of the park’s iconic, near vertical, 900m-high granite monolith, El Capitan. Since then, more peregrines have returned.
In the early days, the birds were actively managed. Climbers helped conservationists to remove thin-shelled eggs, so they could be hatched in safety and the fledglings then returned. Some hatchlings were also raised in safe, predator-proof boxes, then released back into the wild.
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Today, however, the birds are doing so well, they have been removed from the Endangered Species list and since 1992, conservationists have adopted a more hands-off approach.
“It’s a true conservation success story,” says wildlife biologist Sarah Stock, who works in Yosemite National Park. “In Yosemite, the park and the climbing community work together each breeding season to protect nesting sites.”
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Every year, certain parts of the park are closed to public climbers to protect the nesting falcons. The birds and their nest sites are surveyed, and although numbers have fluctuated over the years, the overall trend is upwards. Fifteen active nests were counted in 2025. Seven of them were new. This sets a Yosemite record for the highest number of nests found in a year and heralds the welcome return of breeding peregrines to El Capitan. One pair even nested on the exact same ledge where climbers discovered the birds in 1978.
The 23 new chicks all fledged around June, bringing the total number of peregrines hatched at Yosemite (since 2009) to more than 375. "We expect most adult birds to survive the winter and to return to their same breeding territories this spring,” says Stock. “As both a biologist and a climber, it’s incredibly moving to share the cliffs with these birds, right where belong.”
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