The Bald Eagle Crisis

     Animals becoming extinct is a big problem. One animal that almost went extinct nearly forty years ago was the bald eagle. Here are some ways people handled the problem. 

I'm sure you have all heard of the bald eagle. Well, some forty years ago this bird almost went extinct. The government realized the problem and made new laws to help. They made a program to breed the eagles in captivity before letting them into the wild. They monitored their nests and protected them during their breeding season. Here are two of the main reasons the eagles were endangered and how the problem was solved. 

One of the main reasons the eagles were going extinct was because even though bald Eagles mostly eat fish, some people once thought that the birds eat the livestock they raised, so they would shoot the eagles and destroy their nests. The government solved this problem by passing the Bald Eagle Protection Act in 1940. This act stopped people from killing, selling, and owning bald eagles. The act did not completely solve the problem though. 

One of the other main reasons the eagles were endangered was because people in the 1940s and 50s used the chemical DDT like a bug spray, and it worked for humans but greatly affected the eagles. The DDT washed into rivers and was absorbed by the fish. The eagles ate these fish and were then poisoned themselves. The chemical made the eagle’s eggs too thin and they would break before hatching. This affected the eagles greatly. So in 1972, the government stopped DDT from being used. This helped the eagles a lot and they were soon on the road to recovery. 

Works Cited -

U.S. Forest Service. “Newsela | How the Bald Eagle Made a Comeback.” Newsela.com, 20 Apr. 2020, newsela.com/read/lib-bald-eagle-history/id/2001007819/?collection_id=2000000192&search_id=d766bc14-584e-4596-b4ad-6e0fbceec9d3. Accessed 21 Jan. 2021.