Young

As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country’s founding this weekend, there will be plenty of images and displays depicting our national symbol, the bald eagle.

When the bald eagle was adopted as our national symbol in 1782, as many as 100,000 mating pairs of eagles may have existed in what would eventually become the lower 48 states. Despite granting eagles such revered status, our treatment of these magnificent birds over the next two centuries was nothing short of shameful with several factors contributing to their regrettable decline.

Bald eagles are fish eagles that prefer to feed mainly on fish. They prefer to live near large rivers and lakes to have fishing access but will also take small animals or feed on carrion if necessary. Development along our waterways deprived eagles of their nesting and hunting sites. Increasing amounts of water pollution and improper use of certain pesticides such as DDT harmed the reproductive success of bald eagles and other species of birds.

Most disgraceful is the fact that eagles were often shot indiscriminately until the 1940s when they finally received federal protection. Sparse populations of remaining eagles and continued habitat loss held the species in peril. By 1963, estimates revealed only about 417 pairs of bald eagles were nesting in the lower 48 states.

When the Endangered Species Act was adopted in 1973, the bald eagle was a charter member of the first endangered species list. The last strongholds for our national bird back then existed in Alaska and parts of Canada. Fortunately, measures were also established during the 1970s to clean up water pollution and protect wildlife habitat. In 1972, the use of this DDT and other harmful pesticides was banned in the United States.

The low point for eagles in Pennsylvania came in 1983 when just three pairs of bald eagles were known to have nested around Crawford County. This was also the year that the Pennsylvania Game Commission launched its Eagle Recovery Project that continued through 1989.

This effort began with capturing young eagles in Saskatchewan and releasing 88 of them at sites on the Susquehanna River in Dauphin County and the Delaware River in Pike County. Gradually, these transplanted eagles established themselves and began to breed here as well. Pennsylvania’s restoration efforts progressed slowly at first, producing eight active eagle nests by 1990.

By 2000, there were 48, and Pennsylvania eagle nests topped 100 in 2006, 150 in 2008 and more than 200 in 2011.

In our region, nesting pairs of bald eagles established residence at Raystown Lake in Huntingdon County during the early years of the restoration efforts. Raystown Lake emerged as a prolific incubator of bald eagles, with nests there producing dozens of young eagles over the next 20 years, with generations of those birds now frequently seen throughout the Juniata Valley.

Bald eagles even have established numerous nest sites around the rivers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Eagle restoration efforts on the Chesapeake Bay and in New York also experienced similar success rates.

Among the most gratifying signs of success for eagle restoration started in 1996 when bald eagles were upgraded from “endangered” to “threatened” on the federal endangered species list.

The Game Commission took the bald eagle off the state’s endangered list in 2005, reclassifying it to a “threatened” species. Bald eagles were removed from the federal endangered species list entirely in 2007.

And in January 2014, the Pennsylvania Game Commission removed the bald eagle from the state list of threatened species, marking one of the greatest milestones for Pennsylvania’s eagle recovery efforts.

It’s wonderful not only to celebrate that our national bird is no longer rare in Pennsylvania, affording every resident of the state the opportunity to see one of these remarkable birds in the wild. Bald eagles are a majestic sight.

Mature birds are large with wingspans approaching seven feet. Adult birds display a bright white head and tail, which they attain at about five years old. Immature eagles are brown with splashes of white on their body and wings.

Eagles typically mate for life. Mating pairs build large nests, five feet or more in diameter, and will often enlarge and reuse the same nest site for years. The female commonly lay a pair of eggs as early as February that will hatch in about 35 days and will learn to fly after about three months. Bald eagles can live for 25 years or more in the wild.

Wildlife and nature have fascinated me for as long as I can remember. As a youngster, I spent countless hours in the woods, exploring and watching for a glimpse of the many birds and animals that lived there. But even when in my teens or early 20s if someone had told me I would ever see a bald eagle in the wild in Blair, Bedford or Huntingdon counties, I would have considered them as being more than a little crazy.

But now a bald eagle sighting in the wild around many of the waterways right here in our own region of Pennsylvania is almost commonplace, something even I wouldn’t have imagined just a few decades ago.