Bald Eagles Are Back. And They Want to Eat Your Pets. [View all]

[douglas9]

With an 8-foot wingspan and a distinctive snowy-white head, America’s national emblem conjures feelings of patriotism and reverence.

“You’re in awe every time you see one,” says Jeanine Pesce, who recently moved from New Jersey to British Columbia and now sees the raptors almost daily. “Their physicality and presence is so profound you feel a need to pay homage to them.”

But Ms. Pesce, who owns a consulting agency, has had to explain some National Geographic-worthy encounters to her 5-year-old daughter. “One day I watched an eagle drag a Canadian goose back and forth across rocks for hours,” she says. “I was told that’s how they tenderize their meat.”

It wasn’t long ago that birdwatchers considered the odds of a bald eagle sighting just this side of a unicorn sighting. Through conservation efforts and the banning of chemicals like DDT, the population recovered to numbers that warranted the bird’s removal from the endangered species list in 2007. A recent report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department found that numbers have quadrupled to more than 316,000 in 2019, from 72,000 in 2009.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/bald-eagle-population-endangered-pets-vancouver-11621012685?mod=djemalertNEWS