{"id":47232,"date":"2021-03-26T14:43:56","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T14:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=47232"},"modified":"2021-03-26T14:51:37","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T14:51:37","slug":"eagle-makes-heroic-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=47232","title":{"rendered":"Eagle makes heroic return"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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(Photo by: Prisma Bildagentur\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By JOHN KANELIS \/ johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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

I want to share a bit of seriously good cheer: the return of the bald eagle.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

Once Imperiled, America’s Bald Eagle Populations Are Soaring | 88.9 KETR<\/a><\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

Indeed, the phrase “soar like a turkey”<\/em> just doesn’t have the same ring as “soar like an eagle.”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n\n

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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 … Continue reading Eagle makes heroic return<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6203,1782],"class_list":["post-47232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-news","tag-bald-eagle","tag-founding-fathers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47232"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47236,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47232\/revisions\/47236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}