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Once on the brink of extinction, these birds have made a triumphant comeback in the wild and are close to being taken off the list of threatened species.
Here is what made the eagle population decline in the first place. When humans began moving into their territory in the 1800's, humans hunted and fished causing less food for the eagles. People began cutting down forests to build houses and farms. Because of that some eagles began dying off due to lack of food and a shrinking habitat. Around the 1940's there was a sharp decline in the eagle population due to farmers using pesticides like DDT. This harmful pesticide was passed to animals like mice and other small animals when they would eat the plants that were treated and when the mice were hunted and eaten by the eagles they would ingest the poison. DDT caused sterility and death in eagles.
Another cause for the decline in the population of eagles were that power lines were placed too close together on high tension wire poles and when the eagles would land or try to take off, their wings would touch both wires at the same time and electrocute the birds. This became a big problem. When, in the 1960's, eagles had been placed on the endangered species list, things were done to preserve the eagles.
Over the years the power lines were replaced and spaced further apart to protect the eagles. DDT and other harmful pesticides were also banned from use. Laws were passed to preserve what eagles were left in the wild. US Fish & Wildlife Service put programs in place to reintroduce eagles to regions where the population had declined. Eagles were hatched in captivity and then reintroduced to the wild. By 1988 the program had been so successful that they no longer needed to breed them in captivity. The eagles were beginning to flourish again on their own. Their condition was then upgraded from endangered to threatened.
The American bald eagle continues to thrive because of the intervention of the US Fish & Wildlife Service, and because people decided to do their part to save these magnificent birds.
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