Bringing Bald Eagles Back: The Museum's Story

At the turn of the 19th century, the Bald Eagle, the national symbol of the United States of America, were critically endangered across the country.
Once very common across North America, the birds were hunted as nuisance predators, and thousands were killed. Settlers thought they posed threats to livestock as well as people!
In the 1920s, Museum co-founder Francis Hobart Herrick began a study of Bald Eagles in Ohio. Herrick built a 7-story tower so he could study the eagles' feeding and nesting habits. He recorded these observations with a film camera and hand tinted glass slides. Herrick's findings aided to the passage of a 1940 federal law banning the killing of Bald Eagles.
But there was another threat. DDT and other pesticides had serious biochemical impacts on the birds. Their eggs were thinner, and would crush under the weight of incubation. Bald Eagles were still in North America, but essentially reproduction had stopped.
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History launched a captive Bald Eagle breeding program, using pioneering artificial insemination methods. In 1983 the Cleveland Museum of National History had its first fertile egg, and the following year, its first hatchling. The Museum program produced 10 eaglets which were placed in nests, for adoption by wild eagles. Nationally and in Ohio, Bald Eagle populations have rebounded. The birds are no longer endangered.

[@SpectralightPhoto]

Wow! great story and awesome footage. Thank you for producing this video.

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