By Matthew L. Miller
I lived in Central Pennsylvania the first 30 years of my life, and never saw a bald eagle. Today, they are so common that seeing them raises mild interest at best.
The same is true over much of North America. The recovery of bald eagles is one of the most incredible conservation success stories ever told, but it appears we’ve forgotten. Or more likely: taken it for granted.
A world with eagles? Of course. Bald eagles are common. Have always been common. The abundance of eagles can teach us little about facing climate change or other global challenges.
But there was nothing inevitable about the recovery of eagles. And solving that issue – far more complex than it first appears – can still provide a map to dealing with our biggest crises.
In 1963, there were 487 breeding pairs of bald eagles in the contiguous 48 U.S. states. The country’s national symbol was still common in Alaska, but critically endangered over much of its range.
The plight of bald eagles is often linked to the pesticide DDT, which bioaccumulates in greater concentrations as it is passed up the food chain. Bald eagles fed on fish that had accumulated a lot of DDT. This did not kill the eagles but led to them laying eggs with thin shells that were easily broken.
However, bald eagles were already in precipitous decline by the time DDT use became prevalent. The pesticide delivered what appeared to be a final blow to a population already in trouble.
Despite being named the national bird early in United States history, bald eagles were widely reviled and persecuted. Many believed they killed off valuable fish and game, and even posed a risk to children. Alaska paid a bounty for many years.
In 1940, the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act was passed, prohibiting most killing of eagles. But the act didn’t have much teeth, and eagles continued to decline. It was only with the banning of DDT and the passage of other environmental legislation that allowed eagle population to, if you’ll forgive the pun, soar.
In 2006, there were nearly 9,800 bald eagle pairs recorded in the lower 48 U.S. states. Many states have since quit annual counts, because bald eagles were no longer considered threatened. It was a remarkable conservation success.
What could the conservation of a charismatic bird have to teach us? Isn’t that a simplistic story for complicated times?
I think the bald eagle’s story has plenty to offer. In fact, saving the eagle required many forms of conservation action – just like issues today.
For a modern-day conservationist, it’s difficult to comprehend just how much people used to hate raptors. In the early 20th century, hawks, owls and eagles were considered “injurious” wildlife, a menace to “beneficial” life like songbirds, game birds and livestock.
Even many devout bird conservationists considered hawks a menace to be shot on sight. For those who saw the role of avian predators in ecosystems, the persecution of raptors had to appear an intractable problem.
A popular “sport” at the time involved lining up along known raptor migration routes and blasting the birds as they passed overhead. Thousands of birds of prey died in this way. The first step in protecting raptors involved educating people about the issue.
Richard Pough (who would later become the first president of The Nature Conservancy) visited a popular raptor shooting spot in eastern Pennsylvania in 1929 Hawk Mountain in 1929 and documented the carnage.
His photos led another conservationist, Rosalie Edge, to lease that eastern Pennsylvania ridge, eventually establishing the world’s first sanctuary for birds of prey. She hired a game warden and the shooting stopped immediately. Today Hawk Mountain is a must-visit hotspot for many birders and naturalists to witness the annual raptor migration.
It really took the environmental awakening of the 1960s and 1970s to address the widespread problems impacting eagle populations. The bald eagle actually became a potent symbol of that awakening and for good reason. What we do to bald eagles we do to ourselves. The deadly pesticides, the polluted water that diminishes the eagle’s food supply, the loss of wetlands: all are bad for humanity, too.
And people spoke up about it. There was activism for environmental regulations on a level htat can be almost unfathomable today. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. It’s also when the bald eagle’s fate began to turn for the better. That’s not a coincidence.
It took a lot of people to stand up for wildlife, for clean water and for environmental legislation before anything was done. But it was not just local action, as important as that was. Earth Day led to federal legislation like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act, both of which would directly benefit eagles.
That bald eagles are now relatively common was not because of historical accident. It’s because people took action and stuck with it. If we don’t see the bald eagle’s story as a blueprint, we’re doomed to have to start all over again.
And even the bald eagle is not “saved” yet. Too many still die because they ingest lead bullets from hunting. This is a solvable problem; copper ammunition is superior to lead for hunting performance, and doesn’t kill wildlife that ingests gut piles.
Perhaps the most damaging conservation problem of all is our collective short-term memory. A bald eagle overhead is a stirring sight. But it’s more. It’s a sign of what we can lose, but also what we have to gain. But we need to get working. Right now.
Matthew L. Miller is director of science communications for The Nature Conservancy and editor of the Cool Green Science blog.
