Tag Archives: bald eagle

environmental news

Eagle makes heroic return

(Photo by: Prisma Bildagentur/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

We have been languishing in a flood of negative news of late: the pandemic, Donald Trump’s shenanigans, economic collapse … blah, blah, blah.

I want to share a bit of seriously good cheer: the return of the bald eagle.

This is worth cheering. The nation’s proud symbol once was on the brink of extinction. Then the federal government banned the use of DDT, a powerful pesticide that had poisoned water that provided fish for the eagles to consume. The birds would feed on the poisoned fish and die from DDT-related complications.

As National Public Radio reported: Contamination from DDT, a powerful insecticide that found its way into eagles’ prey, made their eggs so fragile that they often broke while their parents incubated them.

Then came the Endangered Species Act in 1972. DDT was banned. The eagles began their comeback. The eagle population has quadrupled since 2009, according to the Interior Department.

This is a bit of a mixed blessing in one aspect. The overall bird population continues to decline. So, I am not going to offer a full-throated cheer for the eagle’s return. I remain concerned about the decline in wildlife numbers.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland calls the eagle’s comeback a “historic conservation success story.” Haaland, the first Native American appointed to a Cabinet post, said the eagle “has always been considered a sacred species to American Indian people, and similarly it’s sacred to our nation as America’s national symbol.”

Once Imperiled, America’s Bald Eagle Populations Are Soaring | 88.9 KETR

To think, also, that at the founding of this great nation, that one of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, disliked naming the eagle as our national symbol; he preferred to give that designation to the turkey. What in the world was Ol’ Ben thinking?

Indeed, the phrase “soar like a turkey” just doesn’t have the same ring as “soar like an eagle.”Ā 

The nation’s grand bird has come back. For that I want to salute not only the bird, but those in government who in 1972 had the good sense to take action to stop its senseless slaughter.

environmental news

Trump now wants to kill off endangered species?

This is far from a flash, but here goes anyway: Donald John Trump is off his ever-lovin’ rocker.

The Trump administration now wants to seriously weaken a 1973 law — signed by a Republican president — that helped save several valuable species of wildlife from extinction.

Yep, Donald Trump is taking dead aim at the Endangered Species Act. He wants to weaken provisions that allow for the protection of these species. He claims the regulations are too burdensome.

According to Smithsonian.com:Ā The new rules also impose limitations on how threats are assessed. Officials used to take into account factors that could harm species in the ā€œforeseeable future,ā€ but now lawmakers have more discretion in deciding what ā€œforeseeable futureā€ should mean. So they may choose to disregard climate factorsā€”like rising sea levels and extreme heatā€”that will likely impact species several decades from now.

President Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law in 1973. At the time of its enactment, species such as the American alligator and the bald eagle were in serious trouble. Their numbers had plummeted. The eagle had suffered terribly by consuming fish that were poisoned by DDT. The alligator had been hunted to near extinction along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

Trump endangers the Endangered Species Act

So what in the world is this president trying to do? Why on God’s cherished Earth does this man seek to endanger wildlife that has become part of the American landscape. Consider, too, that the Endangered Species Act helped save the creature that symbolizes the nation itself: the bald eagle!

The Trump administration continues to make moves it aims to help industry, with little or no regard to the consequences they might deliver to God’s cherished creatures.

This is the mindset of an administration led by someone with zero interest — let alone knowledge — of matters he cannot comprehend.

Protecting wildlife? Hah!

environmental news

Bison get new, exalted status

bison

Let us take aĀ break from partisan politics for a moment and talk briefly about something that ought to warm our hearts.

The bison has been named the national mammal of the United States of America, to which I offer a hearty “bravo!”

President Obama has signed the National Bison Legacy Act into law. This new designation does not remove the bald eagle from its standing as the national symbol. It does give the bison some added standing as the national mammal, which is a good thing, considering what human beings did to the grand creatureĀ during much ofĀ the 19th century.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/north-american-bison-national-mammal-us-222975

We’ve all studied American history enough to know how humans slaughtered the great herds on which Native Americans depended for food, clothing and shelter. Bison would roam the prairies in vast numbers. Millions of them galloped across the High Plains, for example.

Humans killed so many of them that their numbers were decimated to fewer than 1,000 or so head of wild beasts by the turn of the 20th century.

They’ve come back. Thankfully.

Several hundred thousand of them now are being raised on ranches and farms. Thousands more roam on public lands. Why, we’ve even received some of them at Caprock Canyons State Park in the Texas Panhandle, where the herd is doing quite well, according to Texas Parks & Wildlife officials.

I’m glad that Congress and the president saw fit to honor the glorious beast with this national mammal designation.

Fans of the bald eagle need not worry about the national symbol, though. It, too, was nearly killed off until the government banned the use of the pesticide DDT, from which the great birds were dying because they were eating fish that had been poisoned by the chemical.

So, what’s next? Designation of the national reptile? I have a suggestion: the alligator, which has made a dramatic comeback of its own along the Gulf Coast.

Meantime, let the buffalo — ‘er bison —Ā roam.