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To be honest, the photo of the bald eagle we posted last week near Fairway was just kind of depressing. There he was, pondering existence over icy waters, looking lonely, and actually balding. But the blogger who spotted that one, spotted two more this week on an ice flow in Harlem; "a huge female adult eagle finishing up a fish as another adult and juvenile begged for scraps!" If you want to see one of these in real life, they're being spotted up and down Riverside Park... just watch out for the packs of coyotes.

The eagle has landed, and it's in Baraboo. The bird watching community is abuzz about an influx of bald eagles in the Baraboo area, mainly along the Baraboo River. "There were so many we couldn't count them all," said Scott Swengel, who organized the Dec. 29 Christmas Bird Count for a 175-square-mile area that includes Baraboo. The bird census is one of many taken annually from Alaska to Antarctica by thousands of volunteers collecting data on behalf of the National Audubon Society. The 85 eagles tallied in the Baraboo count was nearly double the previous record of 45. But the...

KODIAK, Alaska — At least 19 bald eagles died Friday after gorging themselves on a truck full of fish waste outside a processing plant. Fifty or more eagles swarmed into the truck, whose retractable fabric cover was open, after the truck was moved outside the plant, said Brandon Saito, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who coordinated the recovery operation. The birds became too soiled to fly or clean themselves, and with temperatures in the mid-teens, began to succumb to the cold. Some birds became so weak they sank into the fish slime and were crushed. The...

WASHINGTON, June 28, 2007 – After almost disappearing from the American scene, the bald eagle’s comeback is complete, thanks in part to the Defense Department. Challenger, a bald eagle, takes flight during the Bald Eagle Recovery and Final Delisting ceremony held at the Jefferson Memorial, June 28, 2007, as Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne (right) stands with his hand over his heart. Defene Dept. photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Molly A. Burgess, USN  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and other officials made the announcement today at a ceremonial event held at the Jefferson Memorial...

The number of bald eagles in Wyoming has grown to 185 breeding pairs, a population recovery that has exceeded expectations from ornithologists who predicted much lower recovery rates when the birds were first granted federal protection in 1967. The bald eagle population is soaring nationally, as well, with the number of breeding pairs in the lower 48 states climbing from a low in 1963 of 417 to more than 9,700 today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday. The population recovery offers evidence to some scientists that federal protection of the birds under the Endangered Species Act should be...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With the number of Bald Eagles in the United States hitting the highest level since World War II, the Fish and Wildlife Service said on Monday it will decide on removing them from the list of threatened and endangered species by June 29. The Bald Eagle is the country's national bird and its image bedecks the presidential seal. There are now 9,789 breeding pairs of Bald Eagles in the lower 48 states, the agency said. Minnesota tops the list with 1,312 pairs of the white-headed birds. Vermont saw its first baby eagles hatch in 2006. In the...

Court Orders Feds to Stop Stalling and Delist Bald Eagle Within Six Months Contact: Damien Schiff Pacific Legal Foundation Minneapolis,MN; August 10, 2006: Early delisting of the bald eagle from the Endangered Species Act list became almost a certainty today after a federal District Court in Minneapolis today set a deadline for the delisting. The ruling came in a case Contoski v. Scarlett brought by Pacific Legal Foundation, representing Minnesota landowner Edmund Contoski. PLF had asked the Court to order the United States Department of Interior to stop stalling and make good on its earlier promise to remove the bald...

Part of the problem is that the people who decide national policy are headquartered in Washington, D.C., where large plots of private property are rare. Those of us who live in urban or suburban areas imagine endangered species protection to be as simple as being kind to blue whales, grizzly bears and bald eagles. We don’t stop to consider the dilemmas facing people thousands of miles away from us. Bill Snape, Chairman of the Endangered Species Coalition, is an example of one who lives in either ignorance or denial. “There just aren’t private landowners that I can identify where the...

The bald eagle, the national bird which only a few decades ago appeared headed for extinction in the continental United States, is soaring once again.  A 40-year campaign to rescue the bald eagle from the deadly clutches of chemical poisoning has been, by all accounts, a remarkable success. The majestic bird had all but disappeared from the lower 48 states in the mid-1960s but is now flourishing -- so much so that the federal government is considering removing the bald eagle from its list of endangered species.Nowhere has that comeback been more dramatic than in New Jersey. The annual mid-winter...

Republicans' liberal use of Mafia metaphors has angered some Italian-American activists who weighed in on the contentious campaign for the governor's office Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Forrester enjoyed some unexpected praise from environmental leaders who are at odds with his Democratic opponent, U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine, over preservation of a Delaware River island. The Italian-American activists gathered in Trenton to demand an apology from top Republicans, who have repeatedly compared Corzine and his allies to mobsters in an effort to underscore his links to the party's most controversial figures. "To actually have a party organization that...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The population of bald eagles has rebounded so dramatically in Pennsylvania that the species may soon be moved off the state's endangered list and accorded the less serious status of a threatened species. The state was down to three nesting pairs by 1980, all in Crawford County, but the nesting population currently numbers at least 92 pairs and their range extends to about one-third of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. The Pennsylvania Game Commission will consider the change of status later this month, along with proposals to add two birds to the endangered list and move three from...

In the Town of Homer, Handouts Are Turning A Proud National Symbol Into a Bit of a Pest ========================================================= HOMER, Alaska -- Not long ago, a bald eagle smacked right into Kurt Marquardt's head. The bird bruised him and nearly knocked him off his feet. But it could have been much worse. Marquardt, a construction worker, was wearing a hard hat, and the eagle ripped an impressive chunk out of it, not out of his skull. Bald eagles gather at Keene's home, where she throws out fish scraps to the birds. Homer's eagles draw tourists but also kill pets, collide...

Did some reading about protecting our Canadian wildlife, by which I don't mean the annual "Gay Pride" parade along English Bay in Vancouver. No, that wildlife festival has very little to do with 'the birds and the bees' -- and I couldn't mean that more literally. That wildlife parade is designed to promote homosexuality and force social acceptance of their gay and lesbian lifestyle. Gay men barely dressed in G-strings and bras upon festively decorated parade floats dance lewdly with each other and wildly thrust their barely covered testicles -- at child's-eye level -- back and forth to unsuspecting little...

Democrat politicians such as John Kerry and Al Gore who tool around in gas-guzzling SUVs and private jets are always proclaiming what "environmentalists" they are, but here's a shocking case that shows the party's true colors are anything but green. You know the Dems have screwed up when the extremely pro-Democrat New York Times blows the whistle on them. Citgo Petroleum Corp. (one of those companies routinely condemned by Democrats for supplying America with such necessities as fuel and jobs) was good enough to set aside Petty's Island in the Delaware River as a nature preserve. The reason: A pair...

Wildlife officers say someone has been intentionally poisoning more than a dozen bald eagles in the central Willamette Valley. Hundreds of eagles migrate to the Willamette Valley each November to spend the winter and officers believe they are the targets of a horrendous crime. So far, 17 eagles have been found dead near Harrisburg, including two that were found in the last month. Officers say a banned toxic pesticide called fenthion is being applied to a sheep carcass that's used as eagle bait. The fenthion has been linked to all of the eagle deaths. "There's no authorized uses for it...

Somewhere on the sprawling Chippewa Flowage in northern Wisconsin there's a pair of bald eagles that are mad as hell. A furry surprise awaited a pair of bald eagles when they returned to their nest at the top of a 45-foot aspen on the Chippewa Flowage. Bears usually prefer to hibernate in caves, hollow trees or culverts. It's just about time to lay eggs in their huge 4-foot-wide nest at the top of a 45-foot aspen. The nest is made of twigs, grass and moss and took them weeks to build. The only problem - there's a bear slumbering peacefully...

Environmentalist Mike Moody wants to contribute to Georgia's wildlife protection fund, but he's not sure he wants to do it by buying and displaying a license plate adorned with a bald eagle and an American flag.    / (ENLARGE)   Moody has nothing against eagles, yet he dislikes what he sees as a red-white-and-blue symbol of political views he doesn't share.   The 55-year-old outdoorsman runs a canoe and kayaking operation east of Athens on the Broad River and belongs to the river's watershed association. The state's eagle-and-flag wildlife license plate in December replaced a tag that for seven...

<p>In honor of the Independence Day just past, we'd like to suggest the Bush Administration do its patriotic duty on behalf of bald eagles: Set them free.</p> <p>Free, that is, from the Endangered Species Act, where the national bird is still stuck despite a full recovery. In 1963, only 417 pairs of nesting bald eagles survived in the lower 48 states. That number has multiplied to 6,571 nesting pairs, and today you can even spot the great birds dive-bombing around Washington, D.C.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — Officials at the National Zoo (search) suspect that a large cat got into a bald eagle's enclosure and killed the bird, perhaps already weakened by fierce storms and unable to fly.</p> <p>It is the latest in a series of animal deaths at the zoo.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.WASHINGTON July 5 - Frolicking near a waterfall and shady trees, two injured bald eagles settled in to their new home at the National Zoo Wednesday. Sam and Tioga are the first residents of an exhibit designed especially for bald eagles hurt in the wild. Singer Dolly Parton turned out for the welcoming wearing a patriotic mini-dress covered in American flags. Sam and Tioga were previously cared for by a foundation based at Parton's Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. ``We're very involved with saving the bald eagle, because it's very...