Bald Eagles, the American Symbol

As you may or may not know, the blad eagle, the emblem of the United States, is no longer an endangered species. On June 28, 2007 the Interior Department took the American bald eagle off the endangered species list, however the eagle will still be protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act because they are still "threatened." The eagles have been in danger of extinction since the mid 1960s, mainly due to DDT's (a pesticide that is now banned) and overly aggressive hunting. For example, over 100,000 bald eagles were killed in Alaska from 1917 to 1953 because Alaskan salmon fisherman feared they were a threat to the salmon population. (http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/eagle/eagle11.html)

"Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, we now have over 200 breeding pairs, and nationally we have nearly 10,000. This is up from the frighteningly small total number of fewer than 35 pairs America had in the 1970s, but is still only half the historical high of 400 pairs California had before the problems affected them. " (http://kyledesigns.wordpress.com/2007/06/30/amazing-bald-eagle-comeback-just-in-time-for-independence-day/) Actually, most of the eagles for CA were bred at the SF zoo. One of my friends' father works there, and he said that the program was shut down there because it did so well it accomplished its goal. That puts a negative spin on it, but it did serve its purpose.

I decided to put this on the blog because of what the bald eagle represents to America and because many people do not know these things (myself included). We have eagles on the backs of our gold coins, the silver dollar, the half dollar and the quarter, and even on the Great Seal of the United States. I found an amazing site at http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/eagle/eagle9.html which all of you should check out. It is really interesting and funny, and I learned a lot of things. For example, did you know how the bald eagle became the national symbol? Maude M. Grant said, "...at one of the first battles of the Revolution (which occurred early in the morning) the noise of the struggle awoke the sleeping eagles on the heights and they flew from their nests and circled about over the heads of the fighting men, all the while giving vent to their raucous cries. 'They are shrieking for Freedom,' said the patriots."

The website also says that Benjamin Franklin wished that the turkey, and not the bald eagle, had been chosen as the representative of our country because the eagle "is a bird of bad moral character, he does not get his living honestly..." (basically he steals fish that other birds hunted) and is not suited for the "brave and honest" America. I find this very ironic because today America seems to fit Franklin's description of an eagle extremely well (substitute fish for oil, for example).