This seems as good a time/place as any to remind everyone that the sound an eagle makes isn't the screech Hollywood has made you believe it is (that's a red-tailed hawk). It's actually relatively non-macho (for a superpower's mascot anyway) and sounds like it's laughing.
I wish hollywood would make a few more recordings. They always use exactly the same one, every time they have a long shot of a wilderness scene. Movies, TV shows, documentaries, everything.
There’s also a stock audio sound for police radio chatter that is the same as the one in SimCity 2000. Every time I hear that (which is too often) I can’t help but think “well, you cheaped out on sound design"
I was going to reply that “it could be worse: Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird”. But some research says he did not say exactly that, rather he said “ the Turkey is in Comparison [to the bald eagle] a much more respectable Bird”
Eagles eat the dead cows on our farm. As I understand it from 1 minute of google searching Turkeys do not partake of dead flesh. Much more gentlemanly if you ask me.
Given the option, I suppose I'd rather have my flesh eaten after I die than before. But I respect vultures, which subsist entirely on carrion and are highly specialized to do so. Bald eagles are just too lazy to hunt unless they're forced to.
Oh wow, I was biking in the Berkeley/Oakland hills recently and was surprised to hear what I thought was a clear eagle call, because I never see eagles around but I frequently see red-tailed hawks. It all makes sense now!
This is part of a larger phenomenon sometimes referred to as The Coconut Effect. The name comes from the practice of using coconut shells to produce the sound of horses galloping, even when the sound would not make sense in real life (e.g. galloping on a dirt path).
Once audiences become accustomed to certain sound effects, however inaccurate, they come to expect those sounds. When audiences expect the fake sound, they might even think the film/show is inaccurate if it uses a different, more accurate sound for the same effect.
I go birding in a spot near Astoria, Oregon and have counted over 70 individual bald eagles from one spot, some trees will have 20 alone perched in them.
According to national eagle center, "The average eagle needs between ½ and 1 pound of food each day.". So those animals are harvesting 35-70lb of food (other animals) per day. That's incredible to me! There must be so much life in that area.
> So those animals are harvesting 35-70lb of food (other animals) per day. That's incredible to me! There must be so much life in that area.
I mean, you could almost certainly harvest more than 70 pounds of ants a day without making a dent in the ant population. Eagles can't eat ants, but "pounds of life" doesn't mean much.
For sure, you're right, I just find it fascinating how much life is out there. If I try visualizing 70lb of small creatures for eagles to eat, it suddenly seems kind of crazy to think of all those creatures and so much life cycling in such a small area where these things hunt. The earth is just covered in life.
A lot of farmers dump oyster shells on their fields. This attracts quite a bit of gulls and seems related but I am not really sure what the food sources there are.
Grew up in Astoria (70’s - mid 80’s) and never saw that many at once. Would be interested to know where your spot is :). Although I’ve never seen them I’ve seen pictures of Snowy Owls at the South Jetty.
https://www.jack-n-jill.net/blog/2012/12/south-jetty-snowy-o...
I was going to say a similar thing. On one drive from SF to Spokane I was driving through central Oregon in the winter. There must have been a bald eagle on every other fence post for 10 miles at one point. counted over 100 birds of prey, most of them bald eagles.
Bald eagles do have specific prey like fish that they prefer however they will absolutely eat anything smaller than them that isn't a significant threat if hungry and it's opportune. I'm not sure where you would get the idea that they won't pigeons (and road kill as well)
I don’t think they’re adapted like Peregrines for catching agile birds on the wing. I’m not arguing that no bald eagle has ever scavenged a pigeon before.
I saw two of them circling my neighborhood in Minneapolis last week. Gigantic, gorgeous wingspans. Few of my neighbors saw me outside looking up in the sky and came out to see what was going on and stood and watched for a bit too.
It's always fun to see them on the drive up north, too. Such cool looking birds.
I find it amusing the article had to clarify the lower 48 states. In the majority of the United States bald eagles are a rare and majestic sight. In Alaska they are on par with seagulls.
Oh yeah. Very majestic birds, until you see a dozen of 'em squabbling over prime spots on the village garbage scow. Alaska is on an entirely different level.
Tangentially, why do Americans call their middle 48 states the "lower 48"? Alaska is north of them and Hawaii is south of them. Does "lower" mean "east" somehow? If lower meant south as on a map, the actual lower 48 would be everything except Alaska and Minnesota.
It's an informal term, and your looking at ngrams from books, which tend to favor formal language. i
New informal uses that become popular in speech often have a las before they become widely used i'm books.
> Tangentially, why do Americans call their middle 48 states the "lower 48"?
Because for a while it was accurate, and the usage stuck even after it changed (Alaska was admitted before Hawai’i.)
A similar reason a large swath of the north-central part of the continental US is called the Midwest. (In Census uses, where the smaller divisions have more modern/accurate names, this is ironic because the Midwest region consists of the West North Central and East North Central divisions.)
...but Alaska and Hawaii both became states at almost exactly the same time (January and August 1959). Maybe it makes sense if Alaska considered themselves a state in the years before they officially became one? Otherwise, there would be no need for the "lower" part.
It’s a useful like-grouping term, which is why we still use it. Hawaii refers to it as the mainland and Alaska refers to it as the lower 48 because you can’t get from Alaska or Hawaii to the lower 48 without either crossing international waters by air or sea or going through another country overland.
It does come up when discussing shipping and transportation, but Alaska and Hawaii also each have a distinct enough culture and distinctly different set of challenges. Every State along the Colorado river is part of an interstate compact to manage water rights, but if Alaska has a dispute with British Columbia over some resource along their borders, that’s an international matter that pulls in the Department of State and Canada’s, Foreign Office? I know some of the British offices but I’m actually not familiar with Canada’s government agency nomenclature.
because it's under Alaska in latitude? It shouldn't be that surprising. Also most Americans aren't very good at geography other than say spotting their home state, Canada, and Mexico on a map.
We have a couple thousand of them in my town on a seasonal basis every year because they feed on the spawning salmon. They are a bit of a tourist attraction.
> In the majority of the United States bald eagles are a rare and majestic sight.
I didn't realize this until recently. I grew up in Missouri in the 1990s, where they were relatively common outside of town. You'd still point them out to other people when you saw one, but it wasn't a huge deal. Then I went to the Oakland Zoo a few years ago and they seemed to be a very popular attraction.
Not to take anything away from seeing a bald eagle, but for a lot of children that live in the city, seeing regular livestock like a cow in person is a rare thing. The same could be said for the night sky. It's all a matter of vantage. You can see lots of things as photographs on websites in great detail, but the first time you see that same thing in real life with your own eyes even if it is in less detail, it is an experience one doesn't forget.
Years ago, we were shooing a documentary in Valdez and needed the quintessential bald eagle shot. After looking everywhere, we asked the locals where to find them. They said the dump. We got our shots.
If I'm reading their survey correctly, those states have relatively few bald eagles. The reason I checked is that I also remember seeing them often in SD, but was never sure if it was a bald eagle or my parents didn't know/were lying to me. I'm still unsure, they exist but I've never seen a flock like that picture posted here.
The survey details are very confusing, the terms change from the legend to the table, but I did not notice that the border chosen seperates Minnesota from the Dakotas. The Dakotas have relatively few I meant.
"According to scientists from the Service’s Migratory Bird Program, the bald eagle population climbed to an estimated 316,700 individual bald eagles in the lower 48 states."
Alaska Department of Fish and Game[1]:
"Found only in North America, bald eagles are more abundant in Alaska than anywhere else in the United States. The Alaska population is estimated at 30,000 birds."
So you think they bent over backwards, and dishonestly at that, for a 10% change in reported count?
They are always circling over my yard, as they have a nest in the nearby greenbelt.
The fun thing is there's a line through my property. The eagles' territory is west of the line, the hawks' is to the east. Sometimes they fight over the location of that line.
The hawks are half the size of the eagles, but they don't take no ** from the eagles, and it's a fair fight. The hawks usually win the tussle and drive the eagles back over the line. It's like a WW1 aerial dogfight.
And this is in the middle of the Seattle metropolitan area.
I was doing some trail building this last fall and there was a red tailed hawk nest across the valley. It was pretty amazing to hear that classic "eagle" call every now and again while working.
This is great news. It is really about the pesticides more than anything else. In my area, hawks are EVERYWHERE. I see at least 1 every 5 miles along the highway (farmland) watching for food. This was not true 20 years ago.
You still see a lot of them being brought into wildlife rescue hospitals for lead poisoning from having eaten birdshot or in some other way ingesting fired ammunition. Seems to be the biggest issue in the Midwest for them, anyway.
Either way, as a kid I remember being told to assume you'd never see one and they'd probably be extinct in my lifetime. Now I couldn't even tell you how many I've seen, from as far east as PA and north to AK.
I see reports about 'a dozen' etc suffering from lead ingestion. But no national statistics, just anecdotes.
Considering that hunters shoot millions of lead bullets each year, it seems a small problem? It's suggested that birds eat guts from eviscerated animals that hunters leave behind. Perhaps a policy of burying or scattering the guts would solve the problem?
It's a much smaller scale problem than the pesticide issue.
Here in Northern California, we're actually unable to use poisons on pest rodents like squirrels and rats since they often enter the ecosystem through raptors ingesting them.
My friends with a lot of land were advised to get pellet guns and air rifles to deal with their squirrel problems. It's considered the lowest impact to the ecosystem and food chain.
Bird-lovers have pushed an anti-lead agenda (for hunting) for decades and have been highly successful. They continue to make inroads into banning use of lead entirely:
"Bald eagles across the United States are dying from lead poisoning":
I think most of this is anti-gun lobbying. When people are reduced to stoning wild ducks and spearing deer then anti-gunners will ask Congress to ban sticks and stones.
...says somebody who doesn't shoot. Its a big deal. Steel shot isn't just about being a different metal. Its about a quarter of the specific gravity. A quarter of the momentum.
You shoot steel from the same barrel as lead, it's a quite different effect. Range, drop, spread are all different, and lesser.
Pesticides are the more recent threat, but their numbers were hit pretty hard prior to DDT by hunting. Congress put a stop to that in the 40s. Farmers saw them as a threat to livestock.
Hunting... Eagles existed in such large numbers and predated on small lifestock. For 36 years, Alaska paid a bounty of $2 per dead eagle. They had a confirmed 120,195 eagles which bounty was paid on.
This is true in my experience as well. I have not seen any discussion of it, but, man, there are a lot of hawks, harriers, and, yes, bald eagles where there used to be very few.
Well people also used to shoot and stuff the bald eagle specifically because it was the national symbol. I believe that's what drove down the population a long time ago.
I grew up living along the Missouri River. Eagles of any sort were a rare site as a child. It was a big deal when we saw one or one visited the area for a while. The small town paper would even publish photos and stories when was nearby near for a while.
After nearly two decades I left the area and sightings of bald eagles were just run of the mill every day events like any other bird.
I live elsewhere now and a couple pairs of bald eagles live in a urban / suburban area near me seemingly quite healthy and happy.
Wait til you see Golden Eagles :) We have a mating pair of Balds and it is fun to watch their young get bigger and then take off. Every year around the same time, we have a giant Golden that cruises around the lake and forest. The first time I saw it, I couldn't believe how big it was. Like, over a 7ft wingspan. I realize Balds are close, but this Golden one is a monster.
There's some video on YouTube of Golden Eagles pulling young mountain goats off mountain cliffs to kill for food. On the flip-side, seeing our "majestic" Baldies scavenging for food at an Alaskan trash dump like a common seagull was a bit incongruous with my image of them until that point as well.
I get fly-bys from bald eagles in the traffic pattern at an airport I frequent. Even from the cockpit they look enormous. Definitely don’t want one of those monsters to wind up on a leading edge.
Incidentally it’s interesting how many raptors seem to like hanging around in airport traffic patterns. I realize there’s a bit of a selection bias here, but I do work at similar altitudes away from airports and sightings aren’t nearly as common out in the field. I like to think they’re reminding the metal birds who’s boss.
I used to have an office that overlooked an airport (in the UK), and I used to watch the birds of prey taking rabbits off the grass surrounding the runways. Seemed to be a lot of them on there, I guess since its a fairly big area where they don't get disturbed.
But I saw one at the top of an electrical tower and from the ground it was large but not gigantic. Much later on they took the nest down and it was the size of a Mini! Yes, the British car.
Raptors are always amazing to watch. In flight, at rest, nesting, feeding/hunting. So cool.
My house backs a golf course and we currently have a nesting pair of red-tail hawks about 200 yards away. Every once in a while, one soars by with a snake in beak. They also tussle with the local crows (who I assume are tying to snatch eggs).
It's insanely addictive. Over 40 eaglets have hatched out of there since they've been counting. Also potentially interesting to this crowd, the energy plant is natural gas but was originally a thorium nuclear plant.
Man, I really want to see one some day! Made me think of this story telling of an eagle allegedly swooping down and snatching a toddler right from the ground on the island Leka in Norway. She was apparently playing in a blanket, so the talons didn't scratch her, but she was carried almost two kilometres away. The ordeal triggered a search party that eventually found her almost 200 metres up the mountain side, unschated. Norwegian source: https://www.nettavisen.no/artikkel/ble-svanhild-2-tatt-av-or... So if you live in eagle territory, you better watch your children. ;)
Anyway, I remember trying to video those things where I grew up. But they were pretty shy, so I could never get close enough to get a good picture of them. Really amazing bird though not Bald Eagles given that I'm from Europe. If you've got the patience and the equipment to get good pictures of those, then kudos to you, because that's not easy!
I think it's more that all the big birds the eagles hunted were hunted by humans. It wasn't just moa, the other big birds are gone too. E.g. search for New Zealand here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_gigantism
> Over time, though, Harris's worldview changed. He started to see the downside to the industrial farming ... To replace the chemical fertilizer, he brought in chickens and let them roam free. Free-range chickens would fertilize the grass; the grass would nurture the cattle, and shoppers at Whole Foods would love Harris's organic beef. ... But then, the eagles started to descend on Harris's farm. Eagles eat chicken. Eagles love chicken.
Since eagles are protected by law, the farmer wasn't allowed to hunt and clear the eagles from preying on his organic operation.
Which is why you have dogs to protect your livestock.
I think people forget that man's best friend became that way by doing jobs for us. Want your cattle and chickens protected from wolves, fox, eagles, etc? Train some dogs to protect them.
Are you actually aware of dogs protecting free-range chickens against bald eagles? I am not sure that bald eagles really care about dogs. A bald eagle will swoop down and snatch a chicken or even two and fly away without even landing.
That being said I think an even very loose "netting" that can consist of simply rope criss-crossing with certain gaps can sufficiently dissuade eagles and even other prey birds.
>Are you actually aware of dogs protecting free-range chickens against bald eagles?
At any given time I've got 3-5 bald eagles in the woods around my house. There are 3 houses with chickens in the neighborhood. The eagles won't go anywhere near a yard with a dog - I'm quite confident they aren't dumb enough to tangle with a large dog unless they have no other option for food.
I have no doubt if an eagle was starving to death it might tangle with the dog and might even win, but I don't think that would be their first, second, or fifth choice if there were other food options.
Livestock guardians as a general rule don't protect by fighting, but by convincing the predator that the risk is too high to bother. The guardian alerts and the flock reacts to the danger, seeking shelter, making noise, looking up, etc. Without an easy meal the predator moves on. Arial predators are especially risk-averse because it doesn't take much to cause a mortal injury.
I've even heard of people using guardian geese instead of dogs. They're supposed to be very effective at preventing arial predation and orders of magnitude cheaper than dogs, though I've never heard anyone talk about them in the context of something the size of a bald eagle.
I have guinea hens for pest mitigation and when the coyotes and/or hawks have picked off enough I just buy more. I pay about $2 each, it’s not worth getting a trained dog to watch over them, especially since coyotes and raptors do me a huge solid by keeping the cottontail population in check
You can adopt a dog from your local humane society for very little. When I say "train" I mean "find a dog that isn't going to eat your chickens or run away if you can't keep them in a fenced area".
Unless you've actually got cattle you need herded and protected from wolves, pretty much any mutt over 60lbs is going to be good enough to keep the predators away. They'll also be happy to help the rabbits if you let them.
Near the end of that podcast they talk about how Will Harris had evolved his farm to make money off the new flock of eagles that come to the farm:
> "But Will is resourceful, you know. He keeps trying to cross that gap. At one point as we're driving around the farm, we're next to this field with some chickens in it. And there's a pickup truck coming the other way. Will stops the Jeep to talk to the driver of the truck...."
> "In the bed of the truck, there's a guy with a camera with this giant telephoto lens, which is apparently pretty common. People now come to Will's farm to see the eagles. He had this special Eagle Day a few days before I was there. He's even built cabins for people to rent out."
The Biggest Little Farm[1] is a good documentary on this sort of topic. They started an organic farm and hit a similar pain point when coyotes started eating their chickens. They also had a problem with gophers eating their crops. I don't remember exactly but they were fighting the gophers with something, but it wasn't working that well. The solution was to let the gophers go wild, and the coyotes would take care of them instead of their chickens. They balanced each other out.
Now I don't know how this works with bald eagles, but there might be a similar solution for this.
Eagles can take down small drones that invade their airspace. They are also used to being mobbed by smaller birds.
Eagles have actually been trialled as an anti-drone defence [0]. Although this isn't actually a good idea in the long run. A serious attacker could flood an eagle with a drone swarm, or make drones (e.g. explody, sharper blades) designed to hurt / kill eagles. It also takes considerable time and patience to train an eagle compared with the ease with which drones can be replaced.
While not related to the bald eagle population rise, which has been going up for over a decade, I heard a theory about third and fourth order effects of the pandemic that involved rise in predator species like eagles.
Basically, with fewer cars on the road for a large stretch of last spring, small critter populations would boom since automobile death is one of the leading modern causes of death in young critters.
With the population of small animals on the rise, predators would have more accessible food sources allowing their populations to rise over the following years.
I have no idea how this is holding up or whether its based in reality but I found it an interesting way to think about unintended consequences of a large shift in the modern way of living.
Not sure about in the US but here in NZ, birds of prey such as Australasian Harriers thrive by eating roadkill. It's common to round a corner and find one struggling to take off from the carcass it is eating in the middle of the road.
Relatedly, peregrine falcons were removed from the endangered species list in 1999 after decades of conservation efforts. Since 2002 there's been a persistent falcon nest up on the 40th floor of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning, here's a live feed (looks like the mother just laid her third egg two days ago and the falcons have begun incubating): https://www.aviary.org/birds-habitats/live-streams/
Bald eagles eat fish and other animals like squirrels and prairie dogs. The size and health of the bald eagle population is also an indicator of the health and size of the species they use as food.
You'll also see collars of domestic dogs and cats in raptor nests. This is a frightening new thing to watch for in the semi-rural area near my parents' house. They're used to looking out for coyotes and raccoons which can be dangerous to pets. It's comparatively harder to eagle-proof a back yard.
I know of someone who keeps hawks away from his chickens by interrupting flight paths into and out of his yard with plants of various size and spacing.
Trees and trellises should help, but if you want a tiny dog and a big playground for your riding lawnmower, you're in for some disappointments.
Huh, I also thought that and was surprised to learn this.
I'm curious how many people assume the same, as it seems to have become descriptively defined as any wordplay based on a dual-meaning.
Typically, I'm a fan of nuanced definitions because it makes language more useful but, in this case, I'll probably keep using it the same way because I don't feel that the sexual requirement adds much value.
'Pun' probably works in most cases but not all puns are double-meaning and puns also have a cornier/less clever connotation IME.
I was just thinking this past weekend about how bald eagles are endangered and how it would be so cool to see one some day. I'm American, but I've spent very little of the last 10 years in the US. I was taught in grade school that bald eagles were endangered and I had no idea that they were making a comeback. Very cool!
More anecdata, I know of a catfish processor a few miles inland from the Mississippi River (the bluffs of the Mississippi are one of their favorite habitats) in Wisconsin where they scatter fish carcasses in the fields during the winter. I have seen flocks of no less than one hundred bald eagles in the field and roosted in the nearby trees. This is interesting to me regarding the view of Bald Eagles as apex predators (America!) or scavengers (like seeing them at a landfill). They are certainly both. I've gotten within yards of them a few times while cycling in the same area; they will be feeding on roadkill and they fly off just as I quietly roll up to them. They are huge, beautiful, totally majestic, very believable to imagine them flying off with a small lamb or nightmare scenario, a toddler.
There are probably other regional raptor centers that could be a bit closer; <place name> raptor center usually brings something up. In California, for instance, there's at least the Ojai Raptor Center, although I dunno how visitor-friendly they are.
I saw an eagle try to get a baby loon last year at a lake in Maine. The mama loon was on the spot though. The eagle came in fast and low, mama loon raised a terrific racket and got between the chick and the eagle. They struck together and the eagle flew away without its prize. Loons are large, strong birds. Quite a sight to see. After that both parents stayed right by the chick for a while. I do like loons better than eagles. Hopefully the expanding eagle population doesn’t put too much pressure on the loons. Loons have about 3 chicks every year but only about 1 year out of 3 do any of them survive, even with both parents protecting them. They make up for it by being very long lived birds (30 years or more).
Happy to finally see them soaring here in California. Around this time last year I finally spotted one in the wild flying above my yard, it was tagged and everything. Gorgeous site to see.
When I had come to USA I had only heard about bald eagle and never seen one. San Diego Safari park had one caged bald eagle which had hurt its beak and wings so badly that it could only survive in Captivity.
It was a holy F** moment for me as the bird was damn majestic and lot larger and intimidating than what I would expect from a bird.
Garuda - the hindi word for Eagle, is often described as the vehicle of Lord Vishnu, one of the powerful Hindu Gods. Bald Eagle would be perfect match for that job.
I live about 3/4 mile up river from a nest along the Mississippi River. My office overlooks the river and I keep a log of every time I see one flying by. You can walk almost under the nest, and when they're home you can get a sense of just how large they are. After 4 years of living here it never gets old - I dread the day we have to move.
There’s a nest here in South Florida which a couple uses every year. I hope the neighbor with a drone hasn’t caused them to move permanently.
Also, in Cape Canaveral there is a nest on the way to the Apollo/Saturn V center. I was lucky to see one of the eagles resting on top of the building when I went to watch a Falcon 9 launch.
Wow, this is great to hear! I'm in North Carolina, and we have a beautiful (man-made) lake called Jordan Lake where the eagles can be frequently seen. I've been out on boats before and watched them grab fish out of the water. Then you see them fly up to a nest and chill. :) It's truly amazing.
In California I have never seen a bald eagle(besides a zoo), and I have lived here almost 90% of my life, both north and south. Having lived in Colorado for a few years they were seen somewhat regularly, maybe once every 2 months or so, One day I saw three in one day and was blown away.
Saw one flying over an intersection in suburban Colorado just last weekend. I had seen them "in the wild" before (e.g. while river rafting in PA) but it was interesting to see one while I was just out running errands.
There’s a nest and nesting pair you can see really clearly from the wildlife viewing area at Barr Lake State Park, about a mile and a half from the parking lot. Helps to have a telephoto lens or decent pair of binoculars, although when I was there a few weeks ago there were several just hanging out in trees right next to trails.
There are now bald eagles around here in Nashville. I have never seen one in the wild before until recently. It might not be a good thing, if I'm being honest.
I had to chase one out of my yard the other day after it killed one of my chickens. I hadn't realised how large it was until it flew a metre over my head.
Or small dog. I was at a campground in Alaska that had plenty of signs posted re: keeping your pets indoors. Well, someone chose to let their little poodle out of their RV and an eagle took a chance to have a snack.
The aftermath looked like someone hit a feather pillow with a shotgun.
How small a dog are we talking about? pug/chiuaua-sized? Not sure I understood what actually happened. Did the bird take the dog and leave some feathers behind? Did the dog shred the bird? Did the dog's owner shoot the bird with a shotgun?
The dog wasn't more than 10-15 pounds, miniature french poodle looking thing. Sorry for being unclear, but the aftermath was all the fuzzy dog hair that got scattered everywhere from the impact. Dog was done for, owner didn't have time to react beyond scream and try to get the Park Ranger to "DO SOMETHING ABOUT THESE DANGEROUS BIRDS"
As superpower mascots go, I think the eagle turned out to be pretty much perfect. Large, powerful, masters of their environment, noble from a distance. Up close, easily scared, shameless scavengers who love the opportunity to steal prey from other creatures.
Note: No intention of starting a political conversation, as a resident of said superpower I just love the irony.
If your intent wasn’t to start a political flame war, what is the insight you’re providing here?
Every animal needs to survive and will do anything to get by including scavenging. That’s nature. At this very moment, millions of things are getting eaten alive. Welcome to the brutality of Mother Nature.
It’s not very charitable to say something deeply provocative and putting a note to defend. It only reflects your prejudice.
> Every animal needs to survive and will do anything to get by including scavenging.
Yea, and so do nations. The descriptors they used feel conformable describing both the nation and the mascot. It's not deeply provocative. It is a comparison that is interesting to read, because it describes how nations and animals can act similarly, but on difference scales.
Except nations are a completely made up concept by groups of humans, rather than a deep survival drive of the individual when pushed into a life or death scenario.
> Except nations are a completely made up concept by groups of humans
Every division of the universe into distinct constituents is a completely made up concept by groups of humans, including “humans” and “groups” thereof.
Ospreys only scavenge if it's that or starve. Bald eagles scavenge by preference and will harass or kill other raptors, frequently including ospreys, rather than do the difficult and dangerous work of taking prey themselves.
As superpower mascots go, I think the eagle turned out to be pretty much perfect. Large, powerful, masters of their environment, noble from a distance. Up close, intelligent, optimally utilizing resources through scavenging, leaving nothing to waste and who love the opportunity to provide to their young ones and benefit other creatures through symbiosis.
Most powerful Western countries have used eagles as a symbol for over a thousand years, probably as a way of emulating the Roman Empire. The USA is hardly unique in this choice, but America did select a local eagle.
Oh, I agree. I stopped respecting bald eagles after the first time I watched one harass an osprey into dropping the fish that she had actually worked to catch, in order to steal it and eat without going to any real effort. You don't need to see an osprey fishing but once to recognize that they work hard for a living, and I've seen that more times than I can count. Bald eagles are just big lazy thieving bullies and I haven't any use for them whatsoever - I don't even bother going for my camera any more when I see one.
The hawk says: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/sounds
The eagle says: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Bald_Eagle/sounds