American Bald Eagle is Almost Extinct
In 1925, the American bald eagle “soon” risked extinction, a New York Times Magazine article reported. Now in the 2020s, their numbers are thriving.
The journalist William A. DuPuy wrote in 1925:
America’s great bald eagle, national emblem, stamped in effigy on the gold and silver coins of the United States and carried imaged in brass on the top of the standards of the flag when troops parade or go into battle, is almost gone from life itself.
…
Unless an understanding of what they are doing can be impressed upon our gunners, the time will soon come when the bald eagle will take its place beside the passenger pigeon as a splendid American species which once glorified the solitudes but no longer exists anywhere.
A 1960s conservation plan, plus 1967’s Endangered Species Preservation Act, rejuvenated the bird’s population. In 1995, the government downgraded the species from “endangered” to merely “threatened.” Then in 2007, the species was removed from the endangered and threatened lists entirely.
By 2019, an estimated 316,700 American bald eagles existed – quadruple the number from as recently as a decade prior in 2009.
While the American bald eagle had long been something of the unofficial national bird, Congress only officially declared it the national bird a few months ago in December 2024. The bill proved uncontroversial, passing the Senate by unanimous consent and the House by voice vote. President Joe Biden signed it into law.
American Bald Eagle is Almost Extinct: National Bird of Freedom Now Abides Chiefly in Effigy on Our Coins
Published: Sunday, June 7, 1925