Endangered Species

The bald eagle, probably the most popular bird of prey has long been an endangered species. However, its population is now known to be stable and may soon lose its endangered status.

Bald eagles generally weight about seven to ten pounds and measure about three feet from head to tail. They have a wingspan of about seven feet. The female of the species is larger and weigh about fourteen feet. The bird is famous for its striking features, complete with a whitish face, a yellow beak and black talons. It gets its distinctive white face and tail only when it reaches about five years of age. Bald eagles are known to live around thirty years in the wild, they live more than thirty years in captivity.

The diet of the bird consists of fish, and it particularly devours salmon and trout. It also eats rodents, snakes and carrion. Other than that, they prey on deer, fawns, raccoons, hares, rabbits and muskrats.

The bald eagle was once a common sight across the entire continent, but it's population began declining rapidly in the twentieth century due to natural and human made reasons. While their population was estimated to be around three hundred to five hundred thousand in the 1700s, their population fell drastically to around a thousand in the fifties. There were about thirty to eighty thousand of nesting bald eagles when it was adopted as the national symbol of the United States in 1782.

The chief reason of the endangerment of the bald eagle was loss of habitat and thinning of egg shells (caused due to the use of the pesticide DDT). This thinning of the eggs caused the eggs to break before they hatched, resulting in a depletion of population. Rampant illegal shooting of the bald eagle was also a major cause behind the gradual disappearance of its population.

One another main reason behind the decline of the bald eagle population is the poisoning of their prey. The waters of the continent have been polluted due to the vast range of pollutants, contamination of the water ways and therefore the eagle's food sources.

Bald eagles were and are still in danger in spite of making a comeback from the endangered species list. Most of these birds still lose their lives to game hunting, traps, high power lines, contaminants in the food system, destruction of habitat and poisons.

The population of the bald eagle is now increasing slowly due to various actions taken by the Government. For one, the use of DDT has been completely banned, though some states in Southern America still use it.

Today, there are about five thousand nesting pairs and about twenty thousand of the birds in the lower forty states of the United States. Alaska is home to about twenty thousand bald eagles. This bird of prey is presently protected by the Endangered Species Act of 1973, Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940, Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and the Lacey Act.