Bush official: Bald eagle will be off threatened list this year

Bush official: Bald eagle will be off threatened list this year


By DON THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer

SACRAMENTO -- The American bald eagle - the national symbol whose decline helped spur the Endangered Species Act and a ban on the pesticide DDT - will be off the threatened species list this year, a top Bush administration official promised Saturday.

snip...
Today there are more than 7,678 breeding pairs in the contiguous United States, leading the group Environmental Defense to call on President Bush this week to "make history" by removing the bird from the federal list.

The delisting process began 4 1/2 years ago, but is taking far longer than the typical year because the eagle's range is so wide. Nesting pairs must be recounted in each state, and the government's plan must take into account differing protections enacted by individual states.

The delay stretches back to the Clinton administration, Manson said, but earlier this year the administration began the final steps to complete the process by year's end.

more... http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040515/APN/405150833

The species isn't in danger because they can count 15,356 birds?

prove to their family & friends how damn patriotic they are...those little flag pins on the lapel, just don't carry much weight anymore ...But a big old dead bald eagle in the den, hot shit... will go a long way to prove what true macho Americans they are.

:shrug: :eyes:

considering the fact that the 'National Symbol' is really nothing but a fish buzzard! You should see those things in Alaska, during the salmon runs, they're everywhere, but they aren't usually eating anything live, they prefer the dead ones. BWahahahahaha!

The next is a chart titled...Bald Eagle Population
Number of Breeding Pairs 1990 - 2003

http://midwest.fws.gov/eagle/population/nos-state.htm

....seriously curious.

Juvenile bald eagles are a mixture of brown and white; with a black bill in young birds. The adult plumage develops when they're sexually mature, at about 4 or 5 years of age.

Wild bald eagles may live as long as thirty years, but the average lifespan is probably about fifteen to twenty years.

Once paired, bald eagles remain together until one dies, the survivor will not hesitate to accept a new mate

I never knew that Florida has such a high population of bald eagles. These birds like nesting in really high places and Florida, as I recall, is pretty flat. Are you certain that this state isn't using the same counting method it uses in it's elections?

Oh, I forgot, it's baseless.

How dare you, singlehandedly declare what I may have to offer to civil discussion as 'baseless'! P.S. Why don't you first READ the data supplied in links to the above messages before deciding such nonsense?

west coast that has shot or poisoned a whole lot of eagles can rest assured he can keep killing more...

Bald eagle poisonings bewilder investigators

A judge's ruling keeps federal agencies from cooperating to find who is killing the birds with tainted sheep meat

Monday, May 10, 2004
MARK LARABEE

For more than a decade, someone has been poisoning bald eagles in the mid-Willamette Valley.

Since 1991, 18 bald eagles -- including three this year -- have been found dead in a 25-mile radius of Linn, Benton and Lane county farmland. Fifteen had the same poison and sheep meat in their bellies.

"It's a fact that somebody is putting out dead sheep and putting this pesticide on them to kill bald eagles," said Chris Brong, who heads the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's law enforcement office in Wilsonville. "I firmly believe it's a sheep rancher."

Despite that assertion, wildlife agents have no idea who's doing it. They hypothesize that it's someone upset with losing lambs.

http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1084190270254120.xml?oregonian?fpfp

This is so sad...

though.
Makes the hunt more challanging for him.