Bald Eagle Soaring Off Endangered List — 4-Decade Effort Brought Symbol Back From Crisis

By H Josef Hebert Associated Press / Mark Watson contributed

WASHINGTON – George Wallace, a vice president at the American Bird Conservancy, remembers seeing his first bald eagle as a high school student. It was during a trip to Plum Island in Massachusetts. And was it ever a rarity.

“Seeing a bald eagle in the mid ’70s was a big deal,” says Wallace, now chief conservation officer with the conservation organization.

“Now, to be honest, bald eagles are pretty common.”

Wallace spoke of the recovery of the American bald eagle as the Interior Department prepared to announced today that the majestic bird, once almost wiped out by hunters and DDT poisoning, is being removed from the protection of the Endangered Species Act.

A national symbol, the bald eagle has not only survived, but it is thriving after a four-decade recovery effort. Government biologists have counted nearly 10,000 mating pairs of bald eagles, including at least one pair in each of 48 contiguous states, giving assurance that the bird is no longer in jeopardy.

The eagle population hit bottom in 1963 when only 417 mating pairs could be documented in the 48 states and its future survival as a species was in doubt. It was declared endangered in 1967.

The Interior Department has been mulling what to do about the bald eagle for eight years since government biologists in 1999 concluded its recovery had been a success.

Earlier this year, a federal court directed Interior to make a decision on the bird’s status by this Friday, acting in a lawsuit by a Minnesota man who said governmental delays kept him from developing seven acres that included an eagle’s nest.

Conservationists called the eagle recovery a vindication of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, which has been under attack from property rights and business groups, and the subject of internal review at the Interior Department.

Environmentalists worry changes in implementing the law will make it harder to keep plants and animals from disappearing, especially ones lacking the bald eagle’s symbolism.

The bird was not always held with great affection. Over the decades, it was both revered and hated – which almost brought its demise.

With a wing span that can extend more than seven feet and powerful talons that allow it to swoop down and grab prey – be it fish in a lake or a rabbit – the bald eagle was viewed by many as a scavenger, nuisance and dangerous predator.

It was hunted for its feathers, shot from airplanes, the subject of a 50-cent bounty in Alaska, poisoned in some states and fed to hogs in others.

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MID-SOUTH MULTIPLIERS

Eagle numbers take off in region

Bald eagles have multiplied in the Mid-South since 1990. The number breeding pairs counted in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee for 1990 and for the most recent year available:

Arkansas: 10 in 1990, 42 in 2004.

Mississippi: 3 in 1990, 31 in 2006.

Tennessee: 16 in 1990, 120 in 2006.

Greater Memphis Reacts

Rob Fisher, executive director of Little Rock-based Ecological Conservation Organization: “We have mixed feelings about this delisting. Certainly, the recovery of the Bald Eagle is a huge success story for America. We do have some concern that the numbers could decline with no easy mechanism to re-list it. Getting a species listed is a much harder process than removing one.”

Source: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

– Mark Watson

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