Bald Eagle Evolution

Before European settlers first sailed to the America’s shores, bald eagles may have numbered half a million. As the human population started to grow the eagle population started to decrease. Why? Because people started hunting and fishing over a broad area. Essentially eagles and humans competed for the same food, and humans, with weapons at their disposal, had an advantage. As the human population started to grow the eagle population started to decrease. Why? Because people started hunting and fishing over a broad area. Essentially, eagles and humans competed for the same food, and humans, with weapons at their disposal, had an advantage. As the human population grew westward the eagle’s were destroyed leaving fewer places for the eagles to hunt and nest.

The Southern bald eagle is found in the Gulf States from Texas and Baja California across to south Carolina and Florida. The Northern bald eagle is found north of 40 degrees north latitude across the entire continent. The largest amount of northern bald eagles are in the Northwest, especially in Alaska. The northern bald eagle is slightly larger than the southern bald eagle.

Bald eagles have 7,000 feathers. Feathers consist of interlocking microscopic structures that are light but very strong. Layers of feathers trap air to insulate birds against cold and protect them from rain. It is illegal to possess an eagle feather or any other part of an eagle.

Both male and female adult bald eagles have blackish-brown back and breast, a white head, neck, tail, and yellow feet and beak. Juvenile bald eagles are a mixture of brown and white, with a black beak.

A female bald eagles body length varies from 35 to 37 inches, with a wingspan of 79 to 90 inches. The smaller male bal...

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...reat Plains and Mountain West, it may last from January through March. In Alaska it lasts from late March to early April.

Young eagles are called eaglets or eyasses. Eaglets are hatched with their eyes open. They are covered with with a grayish fuzz. Their regular feathers begin to grow when they are 2 to 3 weeks old.

Eggs are about 3 inches long and 2 inches across. Females lay one, two, or rarely, three eggs each year. They are white and become stained yellow in the nest.

On June 28, 2007 the Department of Interior took the American bald eagle off the Endangered and Threatened. Bald eagles will still be protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act for Take of Eagles. The number of nesting pairs in the lower 48 United States increases 10-fold, from less than 450 in the early 1960’s more than 4,500 adult bald eagle nesting pair in the 1990’s.