Bald
eagle
A.
Lawrence Bryan, Jr.
Bryan@srel.edu
Savannah
River Ecology Laboratory, P O Drawer E, Aiken, SC 29802
and
William L. Jarvis
The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) has a varied history
in the United States. Regionally abundant since the colonial period, the
species became somewhat rare in the contiguous United States in the mid-1900s
due to human persecution (hunting, poisoning) and reduced reproduction
due to pesticides, primarily DDT (Buehler 2000). Bald eagles were listed
for protection under the Bald Eagle Protection Act in 1940, the Endangered
Species Preservation Act of 1966 (southern subspecies), and the Endangered
Species Act (ESA) of 1973 (population within the contiguous United States).
As environmental DDT levels and human persecution have decreased, portions
of the population have made significant increases and may have reached
pre-DDT levels. In 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service down-listed
the status of the bald eagle from endangered to threatened under ESA,
and in 1999 the agency proposed delisting the species. No ruling has yet
been offered on that proposal, and bald eagles remain in the threatened
category.
SREL Reprint #2920
Bryan, A.L., Jr. and W.L. Jarvis. 2005. Bald eagle. p. 295-301. In Threatened and Endangered Species. In Ecology and Management of a Forested Landscape: Fifty Years on the Savannah River Site, edited by J.C. Kilgo and J.I. Blake. Island Press.
