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Comment by tomatotomato37 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

My first thought was that the term could’ve predated Hawaii becoming a state, which only happened in 1959. But that seems to be false; the term only started getting popular around 1967: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Lower+48&year_...

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.)

"Lower 48" is a term from Alaska, and predates Hawaii's statehood. ie, an updated version would be "Lower 49".

...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 practical to call the collective states with joint borders. For example, "Lower 48 shipping" on Amazon is different rate.

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.

Just wait till you learn of Down East.

Well, they're the "lower 48" in terms of the date of admission to the union...

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.

The technical term is "contiguous united states"

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.

Holy crap. Now I want to be a tourist in your town :)

Er, which town is it?

Not sure which town the parent was referring to, but we have this in Chilliwack, BC.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/incredible-sight-thousands-o...

> 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.

Can confirm.

In Juneau the best place to find them between salmon runs is near the landfill.

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.

They're common in a lot of areas now even in the lower 48.

I live in the Great Lakes region and I have seen several over my life span.

We see them all over in Minnesota/North Dakota.

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.

Last I checked, Minnesota had the largest population in the lower 48. I personally see them all the time.

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?

Also, "on par with seagulls"?

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[1] http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=baldeagle.main

“Amusing”

“on par with seagulls” meaning seeing 100 in one single area

Also note that 30k Alaska number is from 2008

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