The life and legacy of bald eagle Jackie are celebrated in her home territory of Big Bear

Jackie, the famed Big Bear area bald eagle who became internet famous with her mate, was honored Saturday, Oct. 3, in a ceremony that drew about 2,000 fans and watchers.

The event in the San Bernardino Mountains was called Wings Over Big Bear, and it took place on the patio of Bear Mountain ski resort in the city of Big Bear Lake.

Jackie, the female half of the pair Jackie and Shadow, died in August after parenting several eaglets under the watchful eyes of YouTube, live-streamed by an eagles nest cam set up by conservation group Friends of Big Bear Valley.

“For me, what we are celebrating is her influence,” said Shelley Egan, interim director of the organization.

“Somewhere along the way, people went from watching an eagle, Jackie, to caring about an entire ecosytem,” said Stacy Gorin, executive director of the Southern California Mountains Foundation, during the 90-minute program. Her organization was one of several nature groups that set up information booths at the event, including the Sierra Club.

Approximately 2,000 people attended the event, according to Visit Big Bear representative Dan McKernan. Attendees began showing up more than two hours early.

Laura Wentz from Goodyear, Ariz., was one of the first in line. She hit the road around 3:30 a.m. for the five-hour drive.

Tianna and Doug McLauglin drove in from La Cañada, squinting into the sunrise on the 210 Freeway. They were celebrating Tianna’s birthday.

“We‘ve been watching Jackie since 2017, so I wasn’t going to miss this,” Tianna said.

Mary Hohenbrink, 70, of Sacramento, drove 11 hours to attend the event.

“I was crying and almost had to pull over,” she said, recalling how she had a second computer screen at work so she could watch Jackie over the past four years.

Several people wore Jackie and Shadow T-shirts, and some carried mementos. Angela Scott of Santa Clarita sat in the front row cradling a floral arrangement of pine branches made by her mother. Pine cones represented the eagles and their chicks.

The program took place on a stage in front of Bear Mountain’s sporting goods shop. MountainTop Strings of California, a local youth ensemble, played classical, folk and pop tunes for an hour before it began with members of the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation performing songs of celebration.

A skywriting plane created a valentine in the air above.

The ceremony ended with the presentation of an 18-by-24 inch painting by local artist Jillana Marshall showing an eagle soaring near a pine tree. It will go on display at the Big Bear Visitor Center, 40824 Big Bear Blvd.

The painting is a gift to honor Jackie, the Yuhaaviatam people and the Big Bear Valley community, attendees were told Saturday.

It was inspired by Jackie and the Yuhaaviatam, the “People of the Pines,” and the landscape woven into their creation story.

A story on the meaning of the painting by Tara Antongiorgi, head of the Big Bear Plein Air Competition, was read by the announcer at the event.  According to the story, the painting is the story of Big Bear and a remarkable eagle who brought the world there.

Pine trees are reflected in a quiet pool of water. The reflection extends eastward to the landscape surrounding Baldwin Lake in the Big Bear Valley and the sacred land held by the Yuhaaviatam. Across the painting rise the mountains that created the landscape Jackie called home. To the west is the area of the tree and nest shared by Jackie and Shadow, the window to their world.

Beyond the mountains the sky moves from night to day, representing the connections Jackie made far beyond Big Bear — bringing together people from around the world who followed the lives of she and the other eagles in the nest, according to the story.

Jackie was born in 2012. Fourteen years later, she died in the early morning hours of Aug. 10, with the cause of death remaining unknown.

Jackie’s fanbase has extraordinary reach, with fans tuning in from nearly every continent. Since the first installation in October 2015 and a second in 2021, Friends of Big Bear Valley’s social media has grown to about 2.4 million followers, including over 1 million on Facebook and nearly 400,000 in a private group. Posts typically garner thousands of comments, likes, and shares.

Sandy Steers, the former executive director of Friends, said showcasing the bald eagles’ daily lives was part of the nonprofit’s goal of increasing environmental awareness.

“Protecting and conserving Jackie and Shadow’s unique and irreplaceable habitat through monitoring, education and advocacy and also helping humans connect with nature,” Steers said by email in January.

Jackie was born to Ricky and Lucy, two Big Bear eagles named by the U.S. National Forest Service. She fledged the summer of 2012 from a nest in Fawnskin, a small community in Big Bear. When the Friends group installed its first livestream camera, the nest was empty. In fall 2016, an adult female began visiting the nesting site while the camera was running. The group concluded she was roughly Jackie’s age and had feather patterns similar to Jackie’s before fledging in 2012.

Jackie later moved into the nest, mated with a previous partner, “Mr. B,” and raised eaglets in 2018. Shadow arrived later that year, and Mr. B left the area. Since then, Jackie and her latest mate, Shadow, have continued laying eggs and raising eaglets.

Sandy and Luna, this year’s eaglets, have flown from the nest and were last seen on July 23, Friends reported.

This summer, for nearly four weeks, a flock of virtual bird watchers shifted their attention from the nest to a Ventura County-based wildlife center that was caring for Jackie after she was found grounded in mid-July following a fight with two other young adult eagles.

Ojai Raptor Center, the rescue and rehab site providing medical care for Jackie, said the cause of death remains unknown. Ojai staff  that Jackie had likely been suffering from anemia before being found grounded, and their veterinarians investigated what may have caused the condition while Jackie was under their care. Prognosis later identified a reduced red blood cell count.

A California Department of Fish and Wildlife news release on Aug. 11 offered further insight into Jackie’s health challenges. The report said that she suffered from large blood clots in both wings and her kidney. After the raptor’s death, she was transferred to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance for a necropsy. Jackie was then to be moved to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Eagle Repository in Colorado. The procedure follows federal law and sends the remains to a facility that provides feathers and wings to Native American tribes.

Friends stated they have no role in managing Jackie’s remains, according to an Aug. 11 Facebook post.

Despite an outcry from some of Jackie’s fans who are seeking to circumvent federal law by returning her remains to Big Bear, the Friends group has other hopes.

Friends of Big Bear Valley spokesperson Jenny Voisard said, “We would prefer that the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation have the remains. We ask that people honor and respect tradition and process,” Voisard said by text in August.

Staff photographer Terry Pierson contributed to this story.