Posted on 05/17/2021 4:04:19 PM PDT by nickcarraway
America’s majestic emblem conjures feelings of awe. They also attack small dogs and scavenge a landfill.
The bald eagle population has made a remarkable comeback. But the majestic symbol of American pride is turning out to be a nuisance, especially in Canada.
Flocks have been spotted along highways in the Pacific Northwest, feasting in a landfill in Vancouver. Earlier this year, a ravenous raptor stalked and killed a seagull in front of shocked onlookers at a busy Vancouver golf course.
Dignity, my fellow American eagles. With an 8-foot wingspan and a distinctive snowy-white head, America’s national emblem conjures feelings of patriotism and reverence.
“You’re in awe every time you see one,” says Jeanine Pesce, who recently moved from New Jersey to British Columbia and now sees the raptors almost daily. “Their physicality and presence is so profound you feel a need to pay homage to them.”
But Ms. Pesce, who owns a consulting agency, has had to explain some National Geographic-worthy encounters to her 5-year-old daughter. “One day I watched an eagle drag a Canadian goose back and forth across rocks for hours,” she says. “I was told that’s how they tenderize their meat.”
It wasn’t long ago that birdwatchers considered the odds of a bald eagle sighting just this side of a unicorn sighting. Through conservation efforts and the banning of chemicals like DDT, the population recovered to numbers that warranted the bird’s removal from the endangered species list in 2007. A recent report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department found that numbers have quadrupled to more than 316,000 in 2019, from 72,000 in 2009.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I see so many of them in NJ they should change it to the state Bird. Constantly circling overhead signaling death.
Beautiful ball of fur. I can’t imagine that it has wolf genes.
Neat!
I really don’t know. I fish catch and release when I’m up in AK. My brothers freezer is full to the gunnels so we put them all back.
You are correct - there are estimates that domestic cats kill over 1.5 billion every year. I was referencing the killing of pets.
My dear departed aunt, who was as mild-mannered as anyone you’ve ever met and never willed harm to a living soul, once beat a Red-Tailed Hawk to death with a shovel when she caught it eating on of her chickens.
Every spring she bought a bunch of chicks, peeping like mad in their big box full of holes, raised them in the “brooder house”, and every Labor Day weekend we got a family crew of about 20 people together and butchered, assembly-line style.
Everyone took home a few fresh chickens for the table. Those were the days. That hasn’t happened since about 1983 but I remember it like yesterday.
Which is why Benjamin Franklin was of the opinion that our national bird should be the wild turkey instead of the eagle.
The pilgrims would have starved, supposedly, if not for the presence of turkeys. Eagles eat road kill. He thought the turkey was the more noble choice, but in my opinion turkeys don’t look nearly as good on a coin as eagles.
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