🦅 Bald Eagles Came Back From the Brink
America's national bird nearly disappeared — and then didn't.
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📰 The Good News
A Comeback Nobody Thought Possible
By the early 1960s, the bald eagle population in the lower 48 states had crashed to fewer than 500 nesting pairs, driven to the edge by the pesticide DDT thinning their eggshells. After DDT was banned in 1972 and the species gained federal protection, bald eagles staged one of the great conservation comebacks in American history.
🦅 From fewer than 500 nesting pairs in the 1960s to well over 300,000 bald eagles today — officially taken off the endangered species list in 2007, with the recovery continuing state by state ever since.
It took a chemical ban, federal protection, and decades of patience — but it worked, turning a national symbol on the brink of disappearing into one of the most complete species recoveries on record.
👉 Worth Remembering
Sometimes the biggest comebacks just take longer than a single news cycle. This one took 50 years — and it's still one of conservation's proudest wins.
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