Bald Eagle Making A Comeback
By Stephanie Wurtzs.wurtz@krdotv.com
PUEBLO-The US Fish and Wildlife Service is calling it one of the greatest conservation stories in the last 50 years; our nation’s symbol, the bald eagle, is being taken off the list of threatened species. “Bald eagles are pretty much your top of the line guys,” says Diana Miller, director of the Pueblo Raptor Center, which rehabilitates birds of prey, “they’re top of the line predators.” Bert and Haley are bald eagles living at the Raptor center. They will never make it back into their natural habitat because both suffered gunshot wounds and lost parts of their wings. But hope for their species is soaring. “They’re reproducing naturally now, very little captive breeding is being done,” Miller says, “the birds are bringing themselves back with a little help from us in protecting their habitat and cleaning it up.”
In the 1960s and 1970s, the use of DDT pesticides had harmful effects on the bald eagles’ ability to breed. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, in 1963, there were only 417 nesting pairs found in the lower 48 states. Today, that number has grown close to 10,000. “Hearing how the numbers have steadily increased, especially here in Colorado and the western US, it’s always exciting to know a species is coming back,” Miller says, “especially one like the bald eagle.” Miller also says the eagles are an indicator species. “If something’s going wrong with the habitat, which they signaled to us with the DDT, they’re like ‘whoa, this is serious and we’re crashing and so you all better pay attention,’ so they’ve done a lot for us,” says Miller of the bald eagles, “they’ve helped us too, because DDT has an effect on humans as well.” The bald eagles are still protected under the Eagle Act. It is illegal to hunt the birds or to own any part of a bald eagle, including a talon or feather, without a license.
