Sandy Steers, an environmental advocate and head of the nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley who helped build a legion of fans for the area’s bald eagles, has died.
The nonprofit announced on social media “with heavy hearts and great sadness” that Steers, the organization’s executive director, died Wednesday evening. The organization did not share Steers’ age, saying she referred to herself as “ageless.”
More than a decade ago, Steers’ fascination with the first recently recorded bald eagle chick hatched in Big Bear Valley led to years of planning and fundraising to install a camera in the eagles’ nest overlooking Big Bear Lake.
The cameras are now part of a popular YouTube livestream run by Friends of Big Bear Valley and followed by tens of thousands of fans around the world who watch eagles Jackie and Shadow each season, particularly when they lay eggs and care for their offspring.
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Bald eagles can lay a replacement clutch if the eggs are lost early in the incubation process, as seen in the nest several seasons ago.
“Something about Jackie and Shadow, or the view, or the whole thing — it just kind of took on a life of its own,” Steers told LAist in 2024.
Friends of Big Bear Valley told LAist Thursday that Steers had an enormous heart, loved nature and wanted to help connect people with it.
“She was fiercely protective of all wildlife in Big Bear Valley and everywhere,” Jenny Voisard, the organization’s media manager, said in an email. “She was an amazing leader. She was a calming, healing and creative soul.”
Tributes for Steers from the Big Bear bald eagle community started pouring in immediately.
“This feels almost like California lost its very own Jane Goodall,” one commenter wrote on Instagram.
“She wrote beautifully and made us feel like we were on a branch next to the nest keeping watch,” another wrote on Facebook.
Steers’ stories
Steers once told LAist that after bald eagles started staying in the valley year-round, she used to stand for hours in a parking lot with a spotting scope studying the nest each day.
In 2012, she watched Big Bear Valley’s first recently recorded bald eagle chick grow up. Steers has said she believed that chick was Jackie.
Steers also watched as the chick’s parents, a pair of bald eagles known as Ricky and Lucy, lost sets of eggs and eaglets in subsequent years.
“What happened? Why didn’t they hatch?” Steers said previously. “I wanted to know, you know, could I have saved them?”
U.S. Forest Service biologists shared Steers’ desire to see up close what was happening in the nest. They started researching how to install cameras in Big Bear, similar to those on Catalina Island nests, Steers said in 2024.
After two years of planning and fundraising, Friends of Big Bear Valley got Forest Service permits and installed the eagle nest camera in October 2015. The nonprofit later launched its YouTube channel.
Steers said few people watched the livestream during the first year, but there was something about the set-up that started to draw others in.
The nonprofit also began telling stories on social media about what was going on in the nest and in Jackie and Shadow’s lives. The stories quickly took off and brought more eyes to the livestream, she said.
“I did it trying to keep people informed and educated about the eagles,” Steers has said. “Because that's what our mission is, educating people about the environment and protecting it that way, by people knowing what's going on.”
The community she created
With Steers leading the charge, Friends of Big Bear Valley’s community of bald eagle fans has grown from a few dedicated viewers to more than 1 million followers on Facebook alone.
Thousands of people now regularly tune in to watch Jackie and Shadow, especially when egg-laying season, which typically starts in January, brings new life to their nest.
Steers hosted educational talks about the Big Bear bald eagles, taught classes about the nonprofit’s environmental work and dedicated much of her time to sharing what she loved about nature.
By 2024, Steers had become almost as notable a name in the Big Bear eagle community as Jackie and Shadow.
When LAist attended a Big Bear bald eagle fan party that summer, many people made sure to snap a photo with her, the woman behind the phenomenon, before heading home.
“There is a big hole right now,” Voisard said. “She was dearly loved by her team at FOBBV and by so many that continue to share with us what she meant to them. That has been wonderful to see.”
