How Are the United States' Bald Eagles Doing? Pretty Darn Well

One of the United States' great conservation success stories continues, with bald eagle populations around the nation continuing to grow. Following the devastating pesticide-fueled collapse of the national population in the 60s, the bird's resurgence stands as proof that environmental regulations and dedicated conservation efforts can find true success.

The continued growth has been evident in Virginia's James River and Chesapeake Bay region, where early surveys conducted this spring by the Center for Conservation Biology found 220 breeding pairs, already a step up over 2013's total of 205.

"The population continues to grow, and doesn't seem to be slowing down," Center for Conservation Biology Director Bryan Watts said in a phone call. "It's been growing at a rate of about eight to 10 percent a year, and has been since the 80s."

The main culprit for the bald eagle's collapse—along with a number other of birds—has long been pegged as the widespread use of DDT, a mosquito-killing pesticide that contaminated river ecosystems and caused birds to lay eggs with brittle shells.

But the problem ran even deeper: As explained in a 2002 National Geographic story, the birds faced "decades of persecution," including rampant poaching and habitat loss, and the total number of breeding pairs in the whole nation plummeted to 487 in 1963. Following the 1972 DDT ban and, more recently, stricter protection of breeding sites, the birds have bounced back, and now there are more than 10,000 pairs.

"[Continued protection] of those sites has allowed the birds to reproduce, and that's been huge," Watts said. "Right now it's like a snowball rolling down a hill, there's so much momentum and we've not yet reached saturation. There's a tremendous number of birds out there."

Virginia is not alone, either. Pennsylvania had a record number of nests at this year's count, with 254 spotted in total. In Kansas, numbers are soaring as well. Even in New York, which saw some of the worst of the bald eagle collapse, new eaglets are taking flight.

"Overall, the population in the lower 48 has been growing at about the same rate as the Bay population, about eight to 10 percent per year," Watts said. "The only place where you see that not currently happening, like Florida, is in situations where the population did not decline to the same degree, and those populations have already reached saturation. That's where Alaska always was."

If trends continue, bald eagles will eventually reach a saturation point across the continental US, which brings forth a question that's only begun to be asked fairly recently: What kind of protection do the birds deserve if their population is stable?

In 2007, the birds were de-listed from the Endangered Species Act following the assessment that their population had grown enough to remain healthy. The decision was hailed as a sign of conservation success, and criticisms were tempered by the fact that the birds are also protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which was enacted in 1940.

As populations have grown, so has their range—and with that expansion comes some land use restrictions covering nesting sites.

"If you look at the amount of property, this is private property, that has some kind of restriction on it due to the protection, and you look at the value of those places, we're in the several billion dollar range in the Bay," Watts said.

So how much protection do eagles need? Or is that even a question we want to ask? "That debate really hasn't been had, but it needs to be," Watts added.