Scratch!

What’s that sound? 

It’s the sound of New Jersey lawmakers crossing “bald eagle” off the state’s endangered species list.

Four decades ago, New Jersey had just two bald eagles left—a nesting pair. Now many more of the majestic birds swoop through the state’s skies. People count them.

Well—hold that pen for a moment. New Jersey is just proposing removing the bald eagle from the list. The actual scratch should happen soon.

You’ll spy eagles everywhere in the United States—on money. But for a long time, the birds disappeared from the sky. Many were harmed by the insecticide DDT. (DDT is a bug-killing chemical that fought bedbugs, diseases like malaria that are carried by insects, and pests that eat food crops.) Fish ingested DDT that washed off into water. Eagles ate the fish. After eating poisoned fish, the birds laid eggs with shells too thin. Baby eagles did not survive. (Another bird species, the osprey, faced the same problem. It may get scratched off New Jersey’s endangered list along with the eagle.)

DDT was banned in 1972. 

The U.S. government removed the birds from the national endangered species list in 2007. But New Jerseyans still had work to do to fix the eagle population in their state. Volunteers and professionals worked to bring eagles back from the brink of extinction. They brought eagles from Canada, nurtured hatchlings, and guarded nests. They educated the public about how to protect eagles. 

As of 2023, there were 267 nesting pairs of bald eagles in New Jersey. 

Why? Eagles are the national bird of the United States. People worked hard to bring them back from danger of extinction.

For more about bald eagles, see The Eagles Are Back by Jean Craighead George in our Recommended Reading.