First Newborn Bald Eagles in Years Seen in Southland

I grew up around Bald Eagles. THey ate the salmon in the river near my home in Alaska. The little Susitna River was fed by hot springs, and so it never froze all the way in the winter. The Eagles could have their eagle convention down there in the winter, with the river serving up the snacks.

I was surprised and horrified when I learned as a child that Bald Eagles were an endangered species. It seemed like a terrible thing, to have our national symbol die out.

They didn’t seem endangered where I was. It made me proud of my home state.

Well, the eagles are apparently recovering from the DDT poisoning that California inflicted on them the last century. Some babies have been born near my near home in L.A.:

If the 9-week-old eaglets survive, federal and state wildlife officials say, they will have begun repopulating the southern end of their historical nesting range before bald eagles were all but wiped out in California by coastal development and the manufacture and use of the pesticide DDT.

Good luck to them!