Our View: Bald Eagle is Back: Species-Saving Works

The national bird is back: Nearly extinct only four decades ago, the American bald eagle comes off the endangered-species list today – - in ceremonies at the Jefferson Memorial.

Government scientists say there are 10,000 nesting pairs of them scattered across our country; they can be found in every state except Hawaii, and in Alaska their fate never was in doubt. In New Mexico, a hundred or so are seen from time to time at the Bosque del Apache and other riverside stretches.

But in the 1960s, the majestic birds were reduced to rare sightings. Long-ago hunters had brought down many — but DDT, which Americans had sprayed so heavily that it leached into rivers and lakes, then into fish, made it truly scarce.

In 1967, it was on an endangered list. That was six years before passage of the Endangered Species Act, so officials were serious about its declining numbers long before the snail darter and less- prominent species gained governmental protection.

The DDT ban of 1972 seems to have done the trick: Poco a poco, the bird’s recovery occurred. By the end of the last century, there was talk of taking it off its protected status. But such is its symbolism to America that only someone like Benjamin Franklin, who abhorred the bird and saw the wild turkey as a more honorable symbol, would want to remove the bald eagle’s protection.

Today’s proclamation by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, of course, does not mean open season for shotgunners: Since 1940, there’s been a federal law against killing it — and most states have spare-the-eagle statutes.

For good measure, the feds are expanding the

1940 law to cover nesting areas. This might raise eyebrows, or ire, among ranchers or farmers who come across the birds on land they want to plow or otherwise disturb — and we’d guess that some standards of reasonability will have to be included in the calculations of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Its recovery is a wing-flapping vote of confidence in endangered- species protection. Few species ascend to its grandeur — and many on whose behalf the Endangered Species Act is invoked draw scorn from Joe Six Pack and others who’d rather have breathed DDT fumes than been bitten by mosquitoes the stuff killed — and as for this bug and that slug, who needs ‘em?

The answer to that is: somebody, or at least something. Nature’s delicate balance demands food-chain components, medicinal resources and decomposition factors no matter how pesky or repulsive. So we’re all better off for the concern that surrounded the bald eagle.

It’s a fixture in our folklore. Take the legend of the presidential seal: For most of our history, the eagle on it faced in the direction of the olive branch in its right claw — but between 1916 and 1945, covering the two world war years, its head was turned to its left, facing a clutch of arrows. Aha — the seal changes depending on whether we’re at war or peace, huh?

No. President Truman did see bellicose symbolism in the neck- swiveling toward the arrows, and figured our eyes should be on something more peaceful — but did they turn the other way during Korea? Vietnam? Afghanistan or Iraq?

Seems President Wilson had the head turned — but not 180 degrees — so to viewers of the seal the eagle would be looking to the right; nothing sinister, and Wilson only reluctantly entered World War I nearly a year after the repivoting.

Whichever way the bird turns, today it does so in greater numbers — and we’re a better nation for it.

(c) 2007 The Santa Fe New Mexican. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.