Soaring Success Story

Credit for the recovery of the bald eagle belongs to more than the federal law protecting threatened and endangered species. The most significant step in saving the national bird from extinction was the 1972 ban on the pesticide DDT. The following year, the Endangered Species Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon.

The eagle was already under the minimal protection of the weak law that preceded the Endangered Species Act. And since 1942, it had been illegal to kill an eagle, protection that continues in force today.

Still, it was a significant milestone in the nation’s relatively short history of environmental awareness when President Clinton announced July 2 that the bald eagle will be removed from the threatened and endangered species list by this time next year.

Naturalists estimate that North America had a bald eagle population of 500,000 during the early years of the republic. By 1963, only 417 breeding pairs remained. Losses were attributed to declining habitat, a diminished food supply and shootings, in addition to DDT. Today, the eagle population in the 48 contiguous states has rebounded to an estimated 5,800 breeding pairs, including 146 pairs in California in the 1998 count. About 1,000 eagles winter in California, many of them migrating here from the Northwest and Canada.

The bald eagle thus joins the gray whale, alligator, peregrine falcon, brown pelican and others as success stories of the Endangered Species Act.

The law remains under attack from landowners, developers and other critics and has been renewed only on a year-to-year basis. But the Clinton administration has brought creative approaches to enforcement of the law that allow for habitat protection without the severe restrictions imposed in past years. This sort of flexible administration, not a potentially fatal weakening, should be the cornerstone of legislation to renew the law.

The recovery of the eagle and other creatures provides dramatic evidence that the Endangered Species Act is working. This is not the time to reduce the protections afforded to the 1,100 other species in the nation that still face possible extinction.