Out of Control

• Contrary to claims by a number of prominent ESA boosters, the bald eagle was never in danger of extinction because the vast majority of the species’ population (around 75%) has lived in Alaska and British Columbia, Canada where the combination of superb habitat and lack of DDT has kept them safe. Alaskan eagles have never been listed under the ESA.

• Banning DDT in 1972, not the passage of the ESA a year later, is widely acknowledged as the paramount reason for the bald eagle’s resurgence. Seventy percent of the bald eagle population in the 48 contiguous states were not even listed under the ESA, and therefore not afforded the purported benefits of its protection, until 1978, several years after DDT was banned.

• Habitat conservation and creation is far more nuanced than portrayed by the ESA’s boosters. The ESA may well have done more harm than good on private land, where most of the listed eagles exist.

• Releasing young eagles in areas where the species had been extirpated proved to be very effective in the recovery effort, but these captive breeding programs were carried out primarily by states and private organizations, not federal agencies.

• Public attitudes about eagles have changed and people are much more inclined to respect and admire eagles and avoid bothering them—the ESA played little role in people’s increasing environmental consciences and attitude towards eagles.

• In the mid-1990s the bald eagle population in the 48 contiguous states reached over 3,000 breeding pairs which met the goal for recovery of the species under the ESA. But the FWS was in no hurry to remove the eagle from the endangered list until 2005, when Minnesota landowner Edmund Contoski sued the FWS for failing to delist the eagle in a timely manner. He won his case, and the court ordered the FWS to remove the bald eagle from the endangered list. As of now there are at least 11,137 pairs, which exceeds the recovery goal by 371%.

• The land use restrictions transferred by FWS from the ESA to the Eagle Act means that the 11,137 pairs in the 48 contiguous states occupy 5.6 million acres (roughly the size of New Hampshire or New Jersey)—524,834 acres of which will be the most stringently regulated because it is closest to nest sites. Keep in mind, these figures don’t account for regulations protecting nesting birds in the outer extent of their ranges, non-nesting eagles, wintering eagles that migrate across the Canadian border, the Alaskan population of bald eagles, or golden eagles-all also potentially subject to the revised Eagle Act.

Because these land-use restrictions are essentially an unfunded mandate for conservation by private citizens on private property, the bald eagle will continue to find a threat to its survival in the very regulations supposedly intended to protect it.

One last fun fact: According to Wikipedia, Benjamin Franklin objected to the selection of the bald eagle as the emblem of the United States, preferring the wild turkey instead.