BRIEF

Mar 13, 2010 — The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Mike Cronin

Mar. 12, 2010 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Dorothy, the female peregrine falcon at the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning, has laid her first egg, officials from the National Aviary in the North Side announced today.

Officials expect Dorothy to lay an egg every one to three days for the next week for a total of about four eggs.

"Chicks will hatch about 30 days after the eggs are laid," Todd Katzner, director of Conservation and Field Research at the National Aviary, said in a prepared statement. "Three to four weeks after hatching, the chicks will be banded by the Pennsylvania Game Commission and given a full medical exam."

To view Dorothy and her eggs, go to www.aviary.org/cons/falconcam_cl.php.

Populations of the once-common peregrine falcons were decimated by pesticides such as DDT. The chemicals caused females to produce thin eggshells that often cracked during incubation.

The bird's populations crashed by the 1960s, and in 1974 peregrines were listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. After a nationwide recovery program enabled the species to make a comeback, the peregrine falcon was federally delisted in 1999.

The bird remains endangered in Pennsylvania because the populations have not fully recovered here.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0288-42855246