Bald eagles losing 'endangered' tag

Environmental attention and government protection help the species make a stunning comeback

The number of bald eagles in North Carolina has increased from one pair nesting in Hyde County in 1983 to several hundred today.

Their comeback, an environmental success story, will be made official today with the government's expected announcement that bald eagles will be taken off the endangered species list.

Nesting bald eagles had essentially disappeared from North Carolina and much of the rest of the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.

The widespread use of the pesticide DDT to control mosquitoes in coastal areas and insects on crops had devastating effects on the eagles' ability to reproduce from the 1950s through the mid-1970s. It impaired female eagles' ability to metabolize calcium normally, causing them to lay eggs with thin shells that shattered before they could hatch.

The eagles' plummeting population in many of the lower 48 states led the Department of Interior in 1967 to put the bald eagle on the federal endangered species list for a portion of the country. In 1978, that protection was expanded. The eagle was declared endangered in 43 states and threatened in five others: Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon and Washington.

Protection worked

With habitat protection and the banning of DDT, the bald eagle population in the lower 48 states has rebounded from fewer than 500 active nests in 1963 to more than 10,000 breeding pairs in recent years, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

To re-establish the population in North Carolina, wildlife biologists released about two dozen young eagles at Lake Mattamuskeet over several years in the mid- 1980s.

"We've gone from one pair back in 1983 to over 100 breeding territories now," said David Allen, coastal region wildlife diversity supervisor for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. "It's safe to say there are certainly hundreds of bald eagles in the state."

Today, the eagle population is concentrated in Eastern North Carolina and the central Piedmont.

There are nests near Triangle lakes, including Falls and Jordan lakes. The nests are distinctive in the tops of pine trees -- huge 5-foot-wide structures that weigh hundreds of pounds.

Stewart Pearce, a marketing researcher, has monitored eagles on Jordan Lake for the New Hope Audubon Society for four years. He has noticed a steady increase in the numbers.

"They are some of the most amazing birds I've ever seen," Pearce said. "To see them swoop down and grab a fish out of the water -- they are extremely graceful."