Listing the species as endangered provided the springboard for working with our partners to accelerate the pace of recovery through captive breeding programs, reintroduction efforts, law enforcement and nest site protection during the breeding season. The species was not listed as threatened or endangered in Alaska because populations there have remained robust. In 1967, the Secretary of Interior listed bald eagles south of the 40th parallel under the Endangered Species Preservation Act. In 1972, as the dangers of DDT became known - in large part due to Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring - the Environmental Protection Agency took the historic and, at the time, controversial step of banning the use of DDT and some related pesticides in the United States.įollowing enactment of the Endangered Species Act, we listed the species in 1978 as endangered throughout the lower 48 states, except in Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin, where it was designated as threatened. By 1963, with only 417 nesting pairs of bald eagles known to exist, the species was in danger of extinction. Other pesticides related to DDT are suspected to have caused increased mortality, in addition to DDT’s harmful effects on reproduction. As a result, their eggs had shells so thin that they often broke during incubation or otherwise failed to hatch. The chemical interfered with the ability of the birds to produce strong eggshells. Bald eagles, in turn, were poisoned with DDT when they ate the contaminated fish. However, DDT and its residues, washed into nearby waterways, where aquatic plants and fish absorbed it. Shortly after World War II, DDT was hailed as a new pesticide to control mosquitoes and other insects.
A 1962 amendment added the golden eagle, and the law became the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. In 1940, noting that the species was threatened with extinction, Congress passed the Bald Eagle Protection Act, which prohibited killing, selling or possessing the species. Coupled with the loss of nesting habitat, bald eagle populations declined. Consequently, the large raptors were shot in an effort to eliminate a perceived threat. The first major decline of the species probably began in the mid to late 1800s, coinciding with the decline of waterfowl, shorebirds and other prey.Īlthough they primarily eat fish and carrion, bald eagles used to be considered marauders that preyed on chickens, lambs and domestic livestock. When America adopted the bald eagle as the national symbol in 1782, anecdotal accounts stated that the country may have had as many as 100,000 nesting eagles. Bald eagle sightings are now a common occurrence in many parts of the country. Habitat protection afforded by the Endangered Species Act, the federal government’s banning of DDT, and conservation actions taken by the American public have helped bald eagles make a remarkable recovery. Bald eagles were decimated by habitat destruction and degradation, as well as illegal shooting and the contamination of their food source by the insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, known as DDT. In the mid-1900s, our national symbol was in danger of extinction throughout most of its range. The bald eagle is an Endangered Species Act success story.
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