Baldly Back

IN February, a group of birdwatchers spotted something that no living person had ever seen before: a bald eagle nest within the city limits of Philadelphia. “It’s the first one that we know about for sure since the Revolutionary War,” says Doug Gross, a biologist at the Pennsylvania Game Commission. A few weeks later the nest contained eggs. By now the two birds that built it are almost certainly the proud parents of one to three eaglets. Gross won’t say precisely where the nest is located, but he reveals with a kind of hometown pride that it’s along the Delaware River-“a couple of flaps and a glide away from the stadium where the Philadelphia Eagles play football.”

Stories such as this are becoming downright common, even if they all aren’t so poetic. On April 2, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced that two bald-eagle chicks had hatched unaided by humans on Catalina Island, off the coast of California, for the first time in recent memory. Around the country, aerial surveys are counting more bald eagles than ever before. Official totals for 2007 aren’t available yet, but the Fish & Wildlife Service anticipates a population of more than 9,000 nesting pairs in the lower 48 states. At least one pair lives in every state except Hawaii, where the bird is not native. “In Virginia, we’ve produced more chicks in the past five years than in the previous 25,” says Bryan D. Watts of the Center for Conservation Biology, based in Williamsburg. “Bald eagles have tremendous momentum right now.”

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.

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IN February, a group of birdwatchers spotted something that no living person had ever seen before: a bald eagle nest within the city limits of Philadelphia. “It’s the first one that we know about for sure since the Revolutionary War,” says Doug Gross, a biologist at the Pennsylvania Game Commission. A few weeks later the nest contained eggs. By now the two birds that built it are almost certainly the proud parents of one to three eaglets. Gross won’t say precisely where the nest is located, but he reveals with a kind of hometown pride that it’s along the Delaware River-“a couple of flaps and a glide away from the stadium where the Philadelphia Eagles play football.”

Stories such as this are becoming downright common, even if they all aren’t so poetic. On April 2, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced that two bald-eagle chicks had hatched unaided by humans on Catalina Island, off the coast of California, for the first time in recent memory. Around the country, aerial surveys are counting more bald eagles than ever before. Official totals for 2007 aren’t available yet, but the Fish & Wildlife Service anticipates a population of more than 9,000 nesting pairs in the lower 48 states. At least one pair lives in every state except Hawaii, where the bird is not native. “In Virginia, we’ve produced more chicks in the past five years than in the previous 25,” says Bryan D. Watts of the Center for Conservation Biology, based in Williamsburg. “Bald eagles have tremendous momentum right now.”

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.