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Bald Eagle Endangered Species Information

The bald eagle, once on the verge of extinction in the mid-20th century, has overcome hardship to make it off of the Endangered Species List. Native to North America, the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) lives near forests and open waters, and its habitat ranges from Alaska and Canada to Mexico. While bald eagles may have numbered between 300,000 to 500,000 in the 18th century, their population declined over the centuries due to loss of natural habitat, hunting and pesticides. Through legislation, the efforts of conservation groups and public awareness, bald eagles continue to survive.

Harmful Pesticides
- In 1940, the U.S. Congress passed the Bald Eagle Protection Act, which made it illegal for individuals to kill or harm bald eagles. Although this law took a step towards bald eagle recovery, the appearance in the late 1940s of DDT, a chemical used to kill insects, led to greater species endangerment for the eagles. During the 1950s and 1960s, Americans sought to kill pests, such as mosquitoes, by spraying DDT across North American farmlands and along shorelines. Bald eagles ate animals that were tainted with the pesticide. As a result, bald eagles began raising fewer and fewer young since DDT affected eggshell growth and caused eggs to break before baby birds could hatch.
Declared Endangered
- According to "Bald Eagles" by Charlotte Wilcox, by 1965 the bald eagle population was reduced to about 3,700 in North America. Scientists began to discover the harmful effects of DDT on the bald eagle population. The U.S. government officially declared bald eagles in the southern United States to be endangered in 1967, and in 1972 the government banned the use of DDT. President Richard Nixon signed into law the Endangered Species Act of 1973, which encouraged federal, state and private organizations to protect the bald eagle and its natural habitat.
Recovery Efforts
- From the early 1970s to the 1990s, scientists worked to increase the bald eagle population. They gathered eaglets, or newly hatched baby eagles, from nests and raised the eaglets until they could fly. Scientists took eaglets from northern states, such as Wisconsin and Alaska, and brought them to live and reproduce in areas of the country where the bald eagle population was dying out. The population of bald eagles began to increase, and by 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service moved the bald eagle from the federal government's Endangered to the Threatened Species List.
Current Status
- Today bald eagles live all across North America and are found in the 48 contiguous U.S. states. The majority of bald eagles live in Alaska and British Columbia. According to the Defenders of Wildlife, there are 70,000 bald eagles in North America. In 2007, bald eagles were removed from the Threatened Species List. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act protect the bald eagle and continue to make it illegal to transport, sell, capture or collect a bald eagle or its nests or eggs.

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