Bald eagle soaring again

Courier News, Bridgewater, N.J.: It was almost not this way.

There were an estimated 25,000 to 50,000 bald eagles in what was to become the United States in the 1600s. When the Founding Fathers were looking for an animal to choose as a symbol of the young republic, they chose the bald eagle because it symbolized strength, courage, freedom and immortality.

With the immortality the bald eagle represents in mind, it’s a sad irony that the number in the U.S. dropped to such levels that in 1967 it was included on the endangered species list.

The diminished numbers were caused by a myriad of reasons, but experts feel the chief reason was the use of the insecticide DDT.

“The DDT used to thin the eggs of bald eagles, so when the female would nest, many of the eggs would break,” said Richard Wolfert, chairman of the East Brunswick Environmental Organization. “So the number of offspring significantly dropped because of DDT.”

Concerns about the overall danger of DDT started on a grass-roots level in the 1950s and came to a head with the banning of the agent in 1972. The Environmental Protection Agency cited “growing public and user concern over adverse environmental side effects” when it announced the ban in 1972.

Since the ban, the number of bald eagles in the U.S. has rebounded to such a point that there are a handful of the birds nesting in the Farrington Lake area of East Brunswick, according to experts.

It looks like they’re elsewhere in the area, too.

There are 9,789 breeding pairs of bald eagles in the country, according to the website baldeagleinfo.com.