![]() ![]() By 1900, 22 states had Audubon societies, and some states outlawed the hunting of eagles. Although in “a land of plenty” there seemed no need for conservation movements, the threat of bald eagles’ extinction ignited efforts to save the species. ![]() Eagles, Davis writes, were “sentenced to death by the ornithology of the day.” By the late 19th century, however, attitudes about humans’ responsibility to nature began to change. Lacking cameras and binoculars, felling eagles was the only way to investigate them closely. Farmers killed them, and so did early naturalists. The eagle prevailed, however, representing “the picture of the nation’s full-fledged independence and sovereignty.” As much as the image inspired patriotic pride, some people-farmers who accused them of preying on livestock and even John James Audubon, who called the bird “ferocious” and “overbearing”-derided them. Debate over the image was, unsurprisingly, vigorous Benjamin Franklin, it was rumored, proposed a turkey. ![]() Regarded as the king of the avian species, symbolizing “fidelity, self-reliance, strength, and courage,” in 1782, the bald eagle was chosen to be emblazoned on the Great Seal of the United States. A majestic history of the bald eagle and how it has reflected the nation’s changing relationship to nature.ĭavis, whose 2017 book The Gulf won the Kirkus Prize and the Pulitzer Prize, creates an equally sweeping cultural and natural history centered on the majestic bald eagle, a bird endemic only to North America. ![]()
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