I saw a Bald Eagle yesterday, it flew right over our car about 30’ off the ground as we were headed to see a Saturday movie matinee (Wonder Woman ). I still take note every time I see these birds. It’s not an unusual sight anymore here in central Missouri, in any month of the year. Eagles have nested along the Missouri River less than a mile from our house during the 12 years that we have lived along the river and we see them frequently, from the back porch, on the drive to work in Jefferson CIty, the state capitol. I regularly see eagles roost in a tree just a few hundred feet from the Capitol building. Today there are about 14,000 pairs of nesting birds in the lower 48 and eagles are among the most visible successes of the EPA and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) — so much so that they are no longer listed as endangered.
One of the EPA’s first acts in 1972 was to ban DDT, due to both concerns about harm to the environment and the potential for harm to human health. Although the pesticide had been controlled by the USDA prior to that, it was still widely used. There was also evidence linking DDT with severe declines in bald eagle populations due to thinning eggshells. Since DDT was banned in the U.S., bald eagles have made a dramatic recovery.
WIth the rise and spread of Zika virus, there is serious talk of resuming use of DDT to control aedes aegypti and other mosquitoes that transmit disease. www.cnn.com/...That is yet another idea Trump and his crowd are sure to favor thefederalist.com/…
My father was a lifelong birder — while traveling, he would often stop the car and get out to watch uncommon birds we would see along the road. He kept a pair of field glasses in a case in the trunk of the car for that purpose. In the 1960s, Great Blue Herons were among those rare birds that he delighted in seeing.
Herons were devastated by DDT, their numbers declined through the 1950s and reached a low in the late 1960s shortly before the DDT ban —
"Bioconcentration" of pesticides like DDT occurs in birds high on food chain because predatory birds tend to live a long time and even if they consume only a little DDT per day, they retain most of what they get. The pernicious aspect of the process is that large concentrations of chlorinated hydrocarbons do not usually kill the birds. However, DDT and related compounds alter the bird's calcium metabolism in a way that results in thin eggshells. Heavily DDT infested Bald Eagles, Herons and Pelicans produce eggshells that are unable to support the weight of the incubating bird.
Shell-thinning resulted in the decimation of the Brown Pelican populations in much of North America and the extermination the Peregrine Falcon in the eastern United States and southeastern Canada. Shell-thinning caused lesser declines in populations of Golden and Bald Eagles and White Pelicans,
Since the ban Herons have recovered nicely. In the summer months I see them nearly everyday in wetlands bordering farm fields on my commute to work. They always remind me of my dad and of the need for generational vigilance in the protection of the environment and endangered species.
It is too easy to overlook the successes we have had is preserving imperiled species like eagles and herons and the threats that the Trump administration’s policies and budgets pose for endangered plants and animals.
Currently, here in the US, there are about 2500 threatened and endangered species.
Trump’ has already moved to delist several of them, the sage grouse for example — not because they have recovered but because they are impediments to development and profit.
Most Americans, me among them, wouldn’t recognize the vast majority of the plants on the endangered species list and have never or very rarely seen any of the animals on the list.
I’ve had the privilege to see just a few of them, Pacific leatherback sea turtle, just once on a whale watching trip to the Farallon Islands, blue whales, beluga whales, while working in Alaska, Grizzly bears on vacation in Yellowstone and Glacier National Park, Cave crayfish and Ozark cavefish here in Missouri. Red-cockaded Woodpeckers in old growth longleaf pines in Georgia. Whooping cranes once in the Bosque del Apache NWR in New Mexico and once at Sabine NWR, I consider each of those sighting among the most precious moments of my life.
Today on Father’s Day — a holiday established by President Johnson in 1966, at a time when Great Blue Herons were in steep decline, I’m reminded of my father’s love of birds and the generational responsibility we have to work for their protection and preservation. In the last Congress, over 200 bills were introduced that would have undermined the ESA. A similar torrent is sure to follow this year. This congress will once again attempt to “Modernizing the Endangered Species Act (ESA),” a transparent euphemism for weakening the Act to accommodate those interested in making a buck without being held accountable for the damage death and destruction they cause. www.care2.com/...
Without resolute resistance to proposed changes in EPA and ESA policy, some species will go the way of the Great Auk, a bird once common along the Atlantic coast and its beaches but now extinct www.smithsonianmag.com/... —en.wikipedia.org/... extinction is forever. library.si.edu/...