Eagles soar back from near extinction

America's symbol is back.

In February the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service intends to announce that the bald eagle, once driven nearly to extinction in the lower 48 states, has rebounded so well that it will be taken off the list of threatened species.

The bald eagle was never in danger in Alaska but was in trouble in other parts of its range in the United States. It was placed on the endangered species list for most of the contiguous states in 1978. Seventeen years later, as recovery efforts progressed, its status was changed from endangered to threatened.

"In 1963, there were 417 nesting pairs in the lower 48, and now there's over 7,000," said Barb Perkins, spokeswoman in the service's regional office, Denver.

The bald eagle, which can have a 7-foot wingspan, was first protected by federal law in 1940. But because of diminished prey and loss of habitat, use of lead shotgun pellets fired at waterfowl and the widespread application of DDT pesticide, eagle numbers declined.

Bald eagles are scavengers as well as hunters, and they would eat fish or birds that had ingested led shot and animals killed by this type of pellet. Lead poisoning "can kill them," said Tracy Aviary curator Patty Shreve.

"It can debilitate them enough that they can't hunt and they'll eventually die."

Pressured by the National Wildlife Foundation and others, in 1991 the Fish and Wildlife Service banned the use of lead shot in waterfowl hunting.

After the 1997 hunting season, when hunters used pellets made of nontoxic material, a federal study resulted in researchers estimating the ban had "prevented the lead poisoning deaths of some 1.4 million ducks in the 1997 fall flight" and that overall ingestion of lead pellets had declined 78 percent.

An even more important factor in the eagles' comeback was the 1972 ban on DDT. The pesticide had worked its way up the food chain, accumulating as it went.

DDT reduced the amount of calcium in the shells of big raptors like ospreys and eagles. Birds incubating on the nest would crush the fragile-shelled eggs, Shreve said.

Controlling DDT and lead shot, and bald eagle reintroduction programs, helped bring about "a great success story," she added.

That success is obvious to the many Utahns who flock to lakes and marshes during the state's yearly bald eagle viewing days.