The bald eagle is now officially our national bird.
Since the founding of our country, bald eagles have been a prominent symbol of American pride. And now they have an official place of honor as the national bird for the United States of America.
It was a few decades ago that the bald eagle was at risk of dying out completely. But thanks to a concerted effort by so many in our country and its inclusion on the Endangered Species Act list, the eagle is soaring today.
A new threat: DDT
At the birth of our nation, the bald eagle owned the skies from Florida to Alaska. But by the late 1800s, bald eagle populations were in freefall and plummeting fast.
They lost much of their habitat. They even suffered from lead poisoning. To save the icon, America made it illegal to kill them in 1940. That helped, until a new threat emerged: pesticides.
In post-World War II America, pesticide use grew exponentially. And none was more toxic than DDT.
You might be familiar with DDT from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which opened our eyes to the environmental harms of pesticides.
What DDT did to the bald eagles was gruesome.
A problem with eggshells
Most bald eagles live near water to access their favorite food: fish. But DDT had washed into our waterways, accumulated in food chains, and made the fish toxic.
Eagle parents-to-be were ready to welcome their baby eaglets into the world, but DDT interfered with eagle eggshells.
When the momma went to sit on her egg to keep it warm beneath her feathers, her hopes were dashed. The delicate, thin eggshells shattered under her weight.
417 nesting pairs
Unable to raise new generations of eagles to take flight, the species was all but doomed to extinction. They hit an all time low in 1963 with only about 417 nesting pairs remaining.
We couldn’t lose our nation’s symbol and needed action to make sure the bald eagle would never go extinct.
In 1972, DDT was banned in the U.S., an excellent start but not enough. After the catastrophic effects of DDT had wiped out so much of the bald eagle population, the birds needed additional help to recover. So, in 1978, bald eagles were listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The Endangered Species Act helped the bald eagle rebound by:
- Creating resources for captive breeding programs and then reintroduction to the wild;
- Enabling wildlife officials to crack down on illegal bald eagle killing; and
- Protecting bald eagle nesting sites during breeding season.
And it worked.
More bald eaglets hatched, left their nests, and took to the skies. The eagles flew to new heights, clawing their way back from the edge of extinction with their sharp talons and powerful wings.
A graduation of sorts
By 2007, the bald eagle was thriving, recovered enough to no longer need endangered species protections.
Today, more than 316,000 bald eagles live in the contiguous United States based on the latest estimate — that’s four times as many eagles as just a decade earlier.
It was an unequivocal success for the Endangered Species Act, but more importantly, this fierce, beautiful bird didn’t go extinct.
America saved the bald eagle.
The Endangered Species Act is one of the single most effective conservation laws we have — it has a 99% success rate for saving species from extinction.
We’ll keep working to defend the Endangered Species Act and save the endangered animals that depend on it. And we’ll build on this law.
Complementary measures
The Endangered Species Act is the cornerstone law to protect species, and it prevents extinction. We can build from there.
What’s next? Money is needed. In particular, state agencies have plans called state wildlife action plans to recover species that may not be on the endangered list but are slipping.
The Recovering America’s Wildlife Act can be the purse that state wildlife agencies so desperately need, as long as Congress passes it. It’s bipartisan. It’s backed by hunting groups, fishing groups, conservation groups, state wildlife officials and more.
It’s needed as a complement to the Endangered Species Act, so that the story of the bald eagle is replicated, again and again. In the meantime, let’s celebrate the fact that America saved the bald eagle, now officially our national bird.
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Steve directs Environment America’s efforts to protect our public lands and waters and the species that depend on them. He led our successful campaign to win full and permanent funding for our nation’s best conservation and recreation program, the Land and Water Conservation Fund. He previously oversaw U.S. PIRG’s public health campaigns. Steve lives in Sacramento, California, with his family, where he enjoys biking and exploring Northern California.
