The bald eagle was taken off the endangered species list Thursday, the happy conclusion to four decades of conservation effort.
In 1963, the bald eagle — its numbers decimated by the pesticide DDT and other factors — was on the verge of extinction in the lower 48 states, with only 417 mating pairs. Today, there are nearly 10,000 mating pairs, and officials are confident the thriving eagle population has reached a healthy level of sustainability.
This success story made possible by the Endangered Species Act and other environmental protection laws.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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19 Comments
If you get a chance to go to El Dorado lake or at time even if you drive by on the turnpike. One of the greatest sights is to see the Bald eagles flying around.. No Turkey can inspire such pride and wonder.Sorry Ben…
An important lesson of this experience is that “What is good for GM is NOT always good for the country.” Eagles in the lower 48 almost became extinct because of unsafe corporate action - DDT. And the health of this species has been restored because of well-conceived, well-implemented and monitored action from the federal government.
They are such magnificent birds, we have a few who come to fish in our lake every once in a while, it’s so exciting to see them!
Eagles are magnificent creatures. They are also, in many ways, an indicator species. Sitting atop the food chain they will show problems before many other species will due to bio-concentration of toxins.
In many ways, the Eagle is the ‘canary’ in this mine we call earth.
I’d like to the the Wichita Eagle re-publish the magnicicent pictures they have on Eagles along the Ark River.
Hey, great news about those bald eagles no longer being on the endangered list. They taste like chicken, you know.
Ever see an eagle in a barrel of fish guts? Heard a good story about that on NPR today.
I met a PhD who was working on this program in Colorado and Alaska. Was very interesting and how long of a commitment he had just to do a tiny phase of the program.
They have some out at Kanopolis lake. I have yet to see them though- but I haven’t been camping out there like I used to.
I think it’s awesome that they’ve made such a fabulous comeback. See what can happen when they take something seriously?
Randy, look in the dictionary and see what decimate really means.
Way too many people misuse it because, I suspect, it sounds cool to say and rolls off the tounge nicely.
I love Eagles and I am glad to hear the news.
But are we still blaming this on DDT?
Give mea break.
Millions of people are being killed by Malaria every year and DDT was the poster child for pseudoscience hysteria.
Countless millions of lives could have been saved and still could if we would stop being such a hysteria driven society when it comes to things like DDT.
Sigh….
So you would rather kill off birds and trees, Nathan, rather than find an alternative to DDT, not to mention increase the risk of cancer?
Some countries have used methoxychlor and pyrethroids to combat malaria, resulting in a decrease of 97% in cases of malaria.
Why not us those options and avoid the other issues?
WS Clark,
Because those “other issues” were based more in Hysteria than any credible scientific proof.
So why not use a substance that is known NOT to cause cancer, kill birds or trees?
Why does the right wing always want to err on the side of death instead of taking a safe approach?
Why not err on the side of caution?
Yep, 10,000 birds, and over 20,000,000 dead people from Malaria.
This is what is called Enviro-math and is used in calculating what will come to be known as the “Goreaffect”
Looks like one of those Win-Win situations to me.
Should be interesting to see what the outcome will be if the African countries that were affected due what they are threatening. Take Green Peace and Sierra Club to the International Court for Crimes against Humanity. heh…to fun.
Now that they are off the list, no doubt the rednecks will be out shooting at them now and the greedy electric company, to save a few dollars, will quit putting eagle gaurds on the transformers. So soon they will be back on the list.
DDT is NOT a carcinogen and has NEVER been listed as one. It was simply misapplied back when.
It was sprayed by airplane, from rail cars, from trucks by the TON. New immigrants coming through Ellis island were rolled in it to delouse them. As were all our soldiers coming from overseas theaters.
In reality it only needed to be applied by the SPOONFUL.
3 or 4 spoonfuls around a home in Africa will do all the malaria stuff without affecting other things.
No application by the TON or Train loads needed.
As always - its the DOSE that makes the poison. Aspirin will kill you to…just dont eat it by the pound.
Environmental stories
Bald Eagle: Success
Ogallala Aquifer: Fail
Power plant effluent: Fail
Ethanol production: Fail
JWink - don’t give ethanol a fail just yet. With new technologies we will hopefully be seeing biomass-to-ethanol. I hope to learn more about that at the KDHE meeting in August.
I won’t use pesticides in my yard, there are alternatives. Better safe than sorry.