Canada says "you're welcome". (Quite some time ago US and Canadian researchers worked to trap and transport eagles from northern Canada, where there will still several thousand; those birds helped restore the population in the contiguous states.)
I've not been able to find sources to indicate the bird's conservation status in Canada at that time. As far as I can tell, every mention of the birds being on the verge of extinction should always be followed by "in the US".
They were not even endangered in the US but in the contiguous US. There was always a large population in Alaska such that people were paid to cull them.
Many "endangered" animals in the US are not endangered in the sense of extinction but in the sense that they are leaving some part of their native range. They are often "endangered in $LOCALE", not endangered generally.
You even say this in reference to Eagles, which are a migratory species whose range crosses hemispheres, as if the contiguous United States is some small aside on that path.
“Don’t worry about the regional extinction of a migratory apex predator because they’re conveniently thriving in dumpsters behind the McDonalds in a town in Alaska.”
I feel that eagles that can fly large distances are in a different category from land animals, which have greater pressures to adapt their lineages to particular geographic ranges, to specialize within the species.
> Many "endangered" animals in the US are not endangered in the sense of extinction but in the sense that they are leaving some part of their native range.
I'm reading this and not understanding where you're going with it. I mean, I get the libertarian bent of the argument: the government is overreaching in an attempt to preserve that which is unimportant, or something to that effect.
But what is the policy aim here? You want eagles to be removed from the endangered species list[1] for... what? So farmers can use DDT again? (The article points out, correctly, that DDT is believed to be the single largest cause of their decline). That seems poorly grounded.
Honestly mostly this just sounds like whining to me.
[1] Which already happened. In 1995! They remained Threatened until 2007 when even that category was removed. In point of fact the success of the bald eagle recovery seems like an argument in favor of species-based conservation efforts. Do you really disagree?
Canada may say "you're welcome", but does the US say "thanks"? Not under the current administration! Ok, they might care about the bald eagle, but other than that, Republican economic interests (real or imagined) will always trump (heh) environmental concerns:
Even here in Canada it's been amazing to see them return to areas where they were gone (southern Ontario, etc). There's a population of them now in Coote's Paradise here in Hamilton. Apparently after a 50 year absence.
This part of Florida was lousy with them when I moved here in the early 90s. And FTR, this area was like Canada South then. Tons of snowbirds.
Everything changes. I haven't seen a bald eagle in a decade or two. I still see Canadians but not a lot. Our forever warming winters are changing what snowbird season is like.
You don't like cobra chickens? And their copious poops?
Actually the goslings are adorable. There's a park nearby where they excessively congregate and I love to take pictures of the little floofballs being all awkward and floofy.
Here in Oregon we have a lot of them, but it never gets old seeing them! We usually see at least a couple on our way to the coast from Portland. Earlier this week, my wife and I saw a mating pair fly high over this field by our house and spiral down towards the ground, holding talons. It was amazing, they are huge incredible birds. I’m so glad to live somewhere that has lots of public land and habitat preservation so my family can enjoy the clean air, water, skies, and trees, as can all of the wildlife we have.
We have a bloat slip on Lake Sammamish and there is a family living in one of the giant trees near the slip. Marymoor park + the lake seem like a great space for them to hunt and live.
There is a wild bald eagle that has taken up residency in Woodland Park Zoo, and has constructed a huge nest in the tree on top of the hill in the Elk enclosure. You can see it from the "Elk Overlook" at the end of the trail.
It's quite convenient that the bald eagle chose the Elk enclosure as its home because that's part of the Living Northwest Trail, so it blends in seamlessly alongside all the other native, but captive, PNW animals!
I watch one get harangued by crows every time it comes to my Seattle neighborhood. It is such a large animal compared to the crows, if it were serious it would absolutely rip the crows to shreds. So far, peaceful.
There's a few that used to live on one of the 520 pylons and would watch the morning bridge traffic go by everyday, but then one was hit and killed by a bus windshield.
In Astoria, Oregon on Wireless road you can find nearly 100 in a tree. I'm not sure why they are in such high numbers, but you can often see them scavenging fields where seafood waste (shells) are dumped.
That’s amazing! I’d love to see it. Looking at a map, the road doesn’t look too long so we could hunt for it, but if you see this could you describe how to find the specific tree?
We have them on Long Island (New York). There's a pair that live in Centerport (a fairly well-to-do neighborhood, nearby), that even have their own Facebook group.
They eat eels. Lots of eels.
I understand they are fairly numerous, up the Hudson Valley.
I'm jealous, I think I've only ever seen one at a zoo twenty years ago. I think they're extremely cool looking birds, I would love to see one in the wild, but they don't appear to hang out much in NYC.
They're comically obnoxious - they have annoying screeches, almost like a squeaky straw. If they get acclimated to people, will steal food and anything that remotely looks like food. They're smart, in the way that most big birds are smart, but rarely sociable and curious like ravens.
We have hundreds here that gather on the same river to catch salmon in the fall. It’s a big tourist attraction. Glad to hear they are thriving down south as well.
I'm 66 years old and never saw a Bald Eagle until I was in my 30s. That was near St. Louis along the Mississippi River. Where I live now (the Ozarks) they're common to see and have been for over 30 years. Some years ago I was camping out here on a lake shore and early in the morning there was a pair of Bald eagles sitting together on a limb on the other side of the lake. I couldn't help but stand there and stare at them. After a bit one of them took off and started flying right toward me, and when it got to my side of the lake it swooped down and pick up a dead branch off the shore line and then turn at me, flapped it's wings a couple time and then threw it at me! Then it flew right back to where its mate was and sat back down next it. I couldn't help but think they were both laughing at me.
Last year, about this time of year, I saw my first Golden Eagle. It was trying to snatch one of my hens. Those are truly amazing. By far the biggest bird I've ever seen. And to be so close to it too. I wasn't more than 12ft from it. I waved my arms and screamed at it and it finally let go of the hen and took off. As it took off I saw there was a "murder" of crows sitting in the trees watching us, at least 30-40 of them, and the eagle took off heading their way. As soon as it got close to the them they all took off chasing it, dive bombing it and cawing like mad!
It's truly great to see them, but my experience is you can't trust them.
I only rarely saw a bald eagle until I moved into a river house a few years back.
That river was one I'd fished since I was a kid. What I've seen has been amazing, all up - the river is far more full of bigger and healthier fish than it ever has been. The birds I've seen along the river have been of a much wider variety, including plenty of Bald Eagles (but also a massive population of red tail hawks, turkey vultures, cranes, storks, herons, etc.). In the spring we get flocks of pelicans coming through the last few years! Pelicans! Occasionally, I get to see an eagle or hawk snatch a fish out of the water.
It's really been amazing to see. It's not all good news - you can't leave small pets unattended outside. We got a ~40lb dog instead of a smaller one because of this.
I don't know if it's just because I grew up with American media that made them seem badass, but the first time I saw one up in Maine I was blown away. It looked so stoic. Also very intimidating for someone going on a hike.
There must be something to it since eagles have been used as symbols for thousands of years alongside the likes of lions and dragons. If anything, media undersells how big and intimidating they are in real life.
I thought the dang thing was gonna rip me to shreds. But it just looked me over for about 10 seconds and then rendezvoused with an older eagle over the Connecticut River.
In 90's I saw bald eagles for the first time (I mostly grew up in DFW, TX) in the Mississippi Valley between WI and Iowa, later in backbone ridge state park, where the valleys are so steep the eagles are flying below you when you're on a spur. It was amazing to me because, as a child in the 70's and 80's we were always hearing about DDT and endangered eagles. Fast forward ~30 years from the early 90's (after a long stint in Canada) I've moved to semi-rural Wisconsin and I see eagles monthly, and closeup (I see red-tail hawks daily, Cooper hawks weekly - one killed one of my chickens last fall), pheasants weekly and sandhill cranes for months every year.
Seems like the conservation efforts for eagles actually worked, and I can't be more pleased.
(Hey, I like birds, ok? I even kept a log with my partner for a while of all the birds we were able to identify at our Bir feeders and on walks).
You may find it interesting that DFW has a nesting pair of eagles that got blown down in a storm and stuck around. What's doubly interesting is that the same area has flocks of parrots that are also thriving.
I remember going on a boat ride to a hotsprings cove on the Pacific side of Vancouver island, and seeing 50+ bald eagles in a small bay flying around a fishing boat. At the time I still thought bald eagles were endangered. They're pretty common in Vancouver, especially near the water, but on occasion I've also seen very large groups flying over land
I pretty much see them on a daily basis in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin and Illinois these days, which is great because I don't think I had one sighting for the first 30 or so years of my life.
Readit News
I've not been able to find sources to indicate the bird's conservation status in Canada at that time. As far as I can tell, every mention of the birds being on the verge of extinction should always be followed by "in the US".
Many "endangered" animals in the US are not endangered in the sense of extinction but in the sense that they are leaving some part of their native range. They are often "endangered in $LOCALE", not endangered generally.
You even say this in reference to Eagles, which are a migratory species whose range crosses hemispheres, as if the contiguous United States is some small aside on that path.
“Don’t worry about the regional extinction of a migratory apex predator because they’re conveniently thriving in dumpsters behind the McDonalds in a town in Alaska.”
For example, the Florida Panther: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_panther
I'm reading this and not understanding where you're going with it. I mean, I get the libertarian bent of the argument: the government is overreaching in an attempt to preserve that which is unimportant, or something to that effect.
But what is the policy aim here? You want eagles to be removed from the endangered species list[1] for... what? So farmers can use DDT again? (The article points out, correctly, that DDT is believed to be the single largest cause of their decline). That seems poorly grounded.
Honestly mostly this just sounds like whining to me.
[1] Which already happened. In 1995! They remained Threatened until 2007 when even that category was removed. In point of fact the success of the bald eagle recovery seems like an argument in favor of species-based conservation efforts. Do you really disagree?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-yearslong-war-de...
https://www.rbg.ca/plants-conservation/nature-sanctuaries/co...
Everything changes. I haven't seen a bald eagle in a decade or two. I still see Canadians but not a lot. Our forever warming winters are changing what snowbird season is like.
Actually the goslings are adorable. There's a park nearby where they excessively congregate and I love to take pictures of the little floofballs being all awkward and floofy.
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It's quite convenient that the bald eagle chose the Elk enclosure as its home because that's part of the Living Northwest Trail, so it blends in seamlessly alongside all the other native, but captive, PNW animals!
The only official mention I can find of this is:
https://blog.zoo.org/2020/10/meet-raptors-superheroes-of-ski...
> Wild bald eagles often nest and raise their young in one of the trees on zoo grounds.
that's why. :)
They eat eels. Lots of eels.
I understand they are fairly numerous, up the Hudson Valley.
Kinda majestic and noble looking, though.
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Last year, about this time of year, I saw my first Golden Eagle. It was trying to snatch one of my hens. Those are truly amazing. By far the biggest bird I've ever seen. And to be so close to it too. I wasn't more than 12ft from it. I waved my arms and screamed at it and it finally let go of the hen and took off. As it took off I saw there was a "murder" of crows sitting in the trees watching us, at least 30-40 of them, and the eagle took off heading their way. As soon as it got close to the them they all took off chasing it, dive bombing it and cawing like mad!
It's truly great to see them, but my experience is you can't trust them.
That river was one I'd fished since I was a kid. What I've seen has been amazing, all up - the river is far more full of bigger and healthier fish than it ever has been. The birds I've seen along the river have been of a much wider variety, including plenty of Bald Eagles (but also a massive population of red tail hawks, turkey vultures, cranes, storks, herons, etc.). In the spring we get flocks of pelicans coming through the last few years! Pelicans! Occasionally, I get to see an eagle or hawk snatch a fish out of the water.
It's really been amazing to see. It's not all good news - you can't leave small pets unattended outside. We got a ~40lb dog instead of a smaller one because of this.
crows making noise are a surefire way to find out anything going on in the woods.
except once I found a silent crow, but a bluejay squawking - the crow was stealing from the bluejay's nest.
Suddenly a life lesson.
> ... it finally let go of the hen and took off.
How was the hen afterwards?
About 2 years ago, a juvenile baldie landed on a pier 4.0 meters from me (according to my camera sensor).
https://photos.app.goo.gl/6cUhtJggrVn5KakX6
I thought the dang thing was gonna rip me to shreds. But it just looked me over for about 10 seconds and then rendezvoused with an older eagle over the Connecticut River.
I was on the pier at sunrise (probably about 5:30 AM) and the light was LOW, so I had to boost the ISO a lot.
Ironically, the bird was almost too close because the minimum distance of my telephoto lens was about 4 meters.
Seems like the conservation efforts for eagles actually worked, and I can't be more pleased.
(Hey, I like birds, ok? I even kept a log with my partner for a while of all the birds we were able to identify at our Bir feeders and on walks).
I lived on a mountain in NC with the hacking falcons and in a wildlife refuge in NC on the coast for the eagles.
Great memories feeding and tracking the fledglings.
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