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Comment by PeterWhittaker | Hacker News Reader

Canada says "you're welcome". (Quite some time ago US and Canadian researchers worked to trap and transport eagles from northern Canada, where there will still several thousand; those birds helped restore the population in the contiguous states.)

I've not been able to find sources to indicate the bird's conservation status in Canada at that time. As far as I can tell, every mention of the birds being on the verge of extinction should always be followed by "in the US".

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They were not even endangered in the US but in the contiguous US. There was always a large population in Alaska such that people were paid to cull them.

Many "endangered" animals in the US are not endangered in the sense of extinction but in the sense that they are leaving some part of their native range. They are often "endangered in $LOCALE", not endangered generally.

I feel that eagles that can fly large distances are in a different category from land animals, which have greater pressures to adapt their lineages to particular geographic ranges, to specialize within the species.

For example, the Florida Panther: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_panther

This is so unbelievably lazy.

You even say this in reference to Eagles, which are a migratory species whose range crosses hemispheres, as if the contiguous United States is some small aside on that path.

“Don’t worry about the regional extinction of a migratory apex predator because they’re conveniently thriving in dumpsters behind the McDonalds in a town in Alaska.”

Can you blame them though? Big Macs are quite tasty

> “We’re used to seeing America’s national bird depicted as a majestic hero plucking wild salmon from pristine streams. But here you can see eagles for what they really are: scrappy, opportunistic feeders. If fresh fish isn’t available, the birds will eat seagulls, ducks, squirrels, mice, the occasional raven, bits of rotten meat dug out of the trash—or, in one case, a piece of pepperoni pizza snatched out of a teenager’s hand. Like us, eagles are adaptable. We should be proud.” [1]

America’s national symbol reduced to dumpster diving and fast food. It scans.

[1]https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/explore-...

Didn't Benjamin Franklin suggest the Turkey instead?

IDK how comfortable people would be eating the national bird every thanksgiving

Considering that the taste is much like bald eagle, I think folks might be comfortable reversing the two.

Reminds me of that joke about the guy who is on trial for killing a bald eagle, and he tells the judge that it was a life-or-death situation: He was lost in the woods, and after several weeks without food he luckily happened upon a bald eagle that he managed to trap and eat to avoid starvation. The judge says, “Well, in that case, we can let you go. But tell me, what does a bald eagle taste like?”

“Oh, sort of a cross between a spotted owl and a California condor.”

Surely the primarily meat-eating eagle would taste different from the primarily bug/seed eating turkey, no?

Not in the universe in which this joke takes place, no.

When given a choice between universes, choose the funnier one. Unless the joke is on you…

If only there was a universe where I got it lol…

Ask the French, who has the rooster as the national bird

What better bird to memorialize than one that people love to eat? It could be the national bird and national meal at the same time.

Probably a myth:

https://fi.edu/en/science-and-education/benjamin-franklin/na...

Not exactly: https://fi.edu/en/science-and-education/benjamin-franklin/na...

I used to think this was crazy, but after I met a few turkeys and bald eagles I concluded he was right (and further, that it would have made a great national bird0.

Where I live the bald eagle takes the place of the black vulture in the winter.

There is something kind of wrong about watching a bald eagle eat a road kill raccoon.

I don’t really think it is ‘wrong,’ or even really unexpected. In the winter, fish may not a viable food option for the eagles due to ice or fish lifecycle. Birds of prey have to keep their weight low, and they don’t have the option to gorge themselves on a kill like a wolf or a lion can. Most birds of prey are only a few missed meals away from death by starvation.

Winter’s scarcity is deadly for predators, and nature doesn’t care about maintaining nobility or the optics of a dead raccoon lunch.

"There is something kind of wrong about watching a bald eagle eat a road kill raccoon."

Why? The bald eagle is a ... bird wot eats meat. If the meat dies by other means and involves no effort then cool - dive in and tuck in. I'll grant you - its not for me!

Look at the constraints and restrictions and opportunities for birds. Yes they can fly (why do they fly). Flying requires huge amounts of energy. It needs the body to be "light" which isn't helpful for a predator that might encounter resistance - feathers turn out to be quite a good armour, along with some fancy footwork and some very fancy bone structures help with the weight issue.

The talons and beak are superb adaptations too. Horrid to watch in action but that's what they do.

Try and imagine yourself in the place of your hero bird. It has a sodding hard and quite short life. Now try and imagine how it strives to stay alive and be that symbol you love to think of - it does not care what you think about its diet! It strives to stay alive and that is really hard - even for an apex predator.

I disturbed a bald eagle eating a road kill deer by driving by one time.

You know how crows and other birds will take off and look like they're going to hit your car? Now imagine it with a bird with a 6 foot wingspan.

I live pretty close to a couple of bald eagles in central Denver. I have seen one of them mixing it up with the other birds to get table scraps left behind by people using the park. I have no idea what they are eating generally but sometimes they are pretty happy to just grab some bread on the ground or whatever.

They are scavengers. They eat what is available.

Up here in western Canada if you want to see A LOT of eagles you go to the dump. They love it there.

>... bits of rotten meat dug out of the trash-or, in one case, a piece of pepperoni pizza snatched out of a teenager's hand.

The article makes it clear that they're inherently "scrappy and opportunistic". You can change the items to match any time period - what about snatching food from a settler's hand, or sneaking a bite of rotten meat a native might have lying around? That's fundamentally the same thing as grabbing food out of a dumpster.

For as much shit as I talk about the state of this country, I'm struggling to use what is, ostensibly, just a bird eating food out of a dumpster as some kind of example of our decline.

> Don’t worry...

that part was fiction, added by you, represented as if he said it.

It is pretty clearly implied.

only if you extend the definition of "endangered" , this argument/position hinges on the definition of a single word. the far left wants to extend the definition of that word to mean the most devastating, irreversible, "give-us-money-or-the-bird-gets-it" definition possible. The GP however, explains that the dire extreme doesn't necessarily reflect reality.

Thanks for making it political... For what it's worth, the far right is perfectly capable of weaponize conservation. Think of the war on windmills.

Its always word games. The word games only work for so long before people realize they're being tricked. Environmentalists that were honest rather than sensational would probably be better for the environment in the long run.

It does not matter, conservatives will willify them all. And will lie about nature and about what environmentalists say. Stop this nonsense where republicans and their donors damage things, lie and then blame their opposition for not being perfect.

My parents lived in a small village in Alaska in the 1990s. Much too small to have a McDonalds or even dumpsters. They had resident bald eagles in the same way many cities have pigeons. That entire region of North America has always been like this. They’ve culled hundreds of thousands of the birds over the last century because they can become a nuisance, particularly if over-populated. They’ll eat anything that looks like meat.

In the same way, the brown bear is almost non-existent in its native range in the contiguous US, but abundant further north. The bald eagle gets somewhat special treatment because it is a national symbol.

Yeah, there are only a few pockets of grizzlies left in the lower 48, and one of them connects to their larger territory in Canada. They used to roam throughout Washington's Cascades but are completely gone, so much so that there are efforts to reintroduce them in the NCNP soon.

Reintroduce.... grizzlies? I know the wolf reintroduction was beneficial, but wolves have killed a grand total of 2 humans in north america in the 21st century. Grizzlies, in contrast, have 11 kills in half a decade (2020- 2025). That's an order of magnitude higher of the danger each one poses, so I'm curious if the grizzly reintroduction yaysayer arguments are using wolve reintroduction as a positive example.

15 people have been killed in car accidents in the United States since you posted this comment.

But yeah, letting wildlife live in its natural range is the problem.

I'm all for reintroducing grizzlies, heck reintroduce east coast bison, but you're very much missing the benefit side of the cost benefit analysis.

such a reddit comment, ugh. and I got downvoted for asking a question that you didnt like... another reddit trait. Please read the hackernews forum rules.

If they reintroduce them, they should at least let us hunt them so they remember to be scared of humans.

This is pretty hysterical. How many grizzlies do humans kill a year?

To say nothing of the California golden bear, which graces the state flag despite being hunted to extinction around 1924. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_grizzly_bear

In North Dakota there are a fair number of actively used (bald) eagle nests, including in the largest city of Fargo. We have videos of them eating fish, competing over a dropped carcass, as you can imagine. There is plenty of prey in the fields, dumps, riverbanks, etc.

>This is so unbelievably lazy.

>You even say this in reference to the Eagles, which are a migratory species whose range crosses hemispheres, as if the contiguous United States is some small aside on that path.

And yet, according to Wikipedia...

>In the late 20th century it was on the brink of extirpation in the contiguous United States, but measures such as banning the practice of hunting bald eagles and banning the use of the harmful pesticide DDT slowed the decline of their population. Populations have since recovered, and the species' status was upgraded from "endangered" to "threatened" in 1995 and removed from the list altogether in 2007.

The irony of calling someone "unbelievably lazy" without maybe checking to see if there was some accuracy to what they were saying is... lol.

It’s unbelievably lazy to trivialize biodiversity loss given the fact that we’re in the midst of the Anthropocene Extinction.

We should all be grateful to Canada for being a refuge for so many species we slaughtered with westward expansion.

You’ll find a list here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_reintroduction

Again, Eagles are a migratory species, that they subsisted by eating garbage in small town Alaska having been hunted and DDT’d to extinction in the lower 48 isn’t the feather in your cap you think it is. The point is that we killed all of the eagles in the lower 48 - a huge swath of territory.

>... that they're thriving eating garbage in small town Alaska...

This is an "unbelievably lazy" and fundamental misunderstanding of how vast and unpopulated Alaska is. I mean you've even got someone else[1] in this thread with experience highlighting that your assertion is inaccurate.

>... and DDT'd to extinction in the lower 48...

You completely missed the part of the quote, in my comment, that very clearly states they were never extinct, and were upgraded from "endangered" to "threatened", and then removed from the list entirely in 2007.

>The point is that we killed all of the eagles in the lower 48 - a huge swath of territory.

It was never true that we killed all of them in the lower 48. Please go read the previously linked Wiki article.

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43180488

We don't fully know (and probably never will) how many genetic diversity has been lost in USA population, subspecies, etc.

I know you won't but It feels you are about to thank us humans to make bald eagle population lower so their diseases didn't spread. Living in Europe this flow of thoughs it's been heard so much.

>We don't fully know (and probably never will) how many genetic diversity has been lost in USA population, subspecies, etc.

I completely agree with this statement.

>I know you won't but It feels you are about to thank us humans to make bald eagle population lower so their diseases didn't spread.

What does this even mean? I simply want an accurate picture of things. Someone made a statement, someone else attacked them for it and insisted they were wrong, yet in point of fact, the initial statement was accurate. More falsehoods were then spread, and I corrected those, too.

That's 'bout it. To imply that I feel some certain way about bald eagles or species loss because I just asked for an accurate understanding around what actually happened is a bit of a stretch.

It’s unbelievably lazy how everyone is suddenly an expert on bald eagles.

Man.. c'mon.. I had a rough night and I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man..

> Many "endangered" animals in the US are not endangered in the sense of extinction but in the sense that they are leaving some part of their native range.

I'm reading this and not understanding where you're going with it. I mean, I get the libertarian bent of the argument: the government is overreaching in an attempt to preserve that which is unimportant, or something to that effect.

But what is the policy aim here? You want eagles to be removed from the endangered species list[1] for... what? So farmers can use DDT again? (The article points out, correctly, that DDT is believed to be the single largest cause of their decline). That seems poorly grounded.

Honestly mostly this just sounds like whining to me.

[1] Which already happened. In 1995! They remained Threatened until 2007 when even that category was removed. In point of fact the success of the bald eagle recovery seems like an argument in favor of species-based conservation efforts. Do you really disagree?

Seems to me like the post is just noting that if you want to postfix "in the US" to "endangered," you should more properly postfix "in the contiguous US." I have no idea why the DDT rant.

Pursuit of the truth is worthwhile in and of itself.

The word "Endangered" in this context (which, again, hasn't applied to the bald eagle for 30 years!) is defined by and used within the context of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Inserting an "actuallly" argument is doing nothing but harming understanding.

It is common for people to have an understanding of terms which differs from their precise legal definition, and the difference between the two can be interesting.

Right, so you agree with me then that calling out ambiguous usage and citing the relevant definitions is valuable? People are getting outrageously bent out of shape in this thread when all I'm trying to say is that the Endangered Species Act is a valuable and important tool and that attempts to "define it away" with ambiguous rhetoric is bad.

The fact that I keep trying to pin you guys down on policy implications with no success tells me an awful lot about who I'm arguing with. (Again: do you or don't you want to return to the use of DDT? Do you or don't you agree that the bald eagle should have been listed as endangered until 1995? Do you or don't you agree that "Endangered" as a legal classification has been a good law? No one answers!)

I really got the strong impression from your comments that you were trying to say there was some hidden nefarious intent behind his comment. You haven't really done anything to dispel that impression.

Otherwise, to what are you referring with "attempts to "define it away" with ambiguous rhetoric is bad." ?

Don't know about "nefarious", but cryptolibertarianism is extremely common on this forum. People throw out points like that all the time and then (as here) run to semantic arguments when challenged. But the point was the challenge, not the intent.

Is it possible I'm wrong about intent? Sure! But the Endangered Species Act remains a really important law and a seminal moment in US conservation policy. And the fact that no one seems to want to talk about it is... suspicious. So I think I'm probably right. Both about the poster above and you.

But more importantly, I'm right about conservation law, even though no one wants to discuss it.

Instead of trying to impute hidden motives, you could just read it as the statement of fact that it was. I wasn't "going" anywhere with it. I've always been an avid conservationist and have actively worked on climate change for decades, I have a pretty good handle of the issues. But I also abhor the popular strain of ideology that believes we should obscure the truth or be dishonest about the reality when communicating with the public because we imagine they might engage in wrong think.

I discovered many years ago that almost everyone is surprised to find out that "endangered" in this context has little relation to "almost extinct" because that is their intuitive understanding of the term and people are encouraged to misinterpret it that way. It comes across as misleading at the very least, which fosters distrust. There is evidence on this very thread that people are confused by this distinction. Furthermore, this has historically been weaponized by activists in ways that are indefensible in the pursuit of other agendas.

If we are going to have adult conversations about these issues then it is imperative that everyone has the same understanding of the tradeoffs at stake and feels they are not being manipulated in bad faith. We have enough challenges with the environment, we don't need to invent new ones.

I still don't understand why you went to that point in a discussion of an animal that (1) isn't characterized as endangered because (2) the relevant conservation effort (decades ago!) was wildly successful.

I mean, do you or don't you disagree with the regulatory practice of labelling "Endangered" species? It sounds like you do. In which case, you're wrong. The Endangered Species Act is a cornerstone of US conservation policy and has saved literally hundreds of species at this point.

You're really reading too much into this. It's an interesting fact that I hadn't heard before, and I appreciated OP sharing it! And from what it sounds like that's exactly why OP shares it: because it's an interesting fact that makes people think.

Why do you persist in trying to assign any motive other than curiosity?

Sometimes people just share information that they have about a topic as part of a discussion, without there being a persuasive intent.

There is no libertarian bent in the argument. I suspect a lot of the drive to censor comes out of extrapolations like this, where people are reading into factual statements agendas that are not there.

In 2020, I had this chart showing the IFR for COVID (it's gone down since then due to widespread immunity from vaccination and natural infection) taken down by Facebook's "fact-checkers" because apparently providing the chart without context was "misleading":

Age Group | Low | Mean | High

-----------------------------

0-19 | 0.007% | 0.01% | 0.02%

20-29 | 0.01% | 0.02% | 0.03%

30-39 | 0.04% | 0.05% | 0.06%

40-49 | 0.08% | 0.1% | 0.1%

50-59 | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.4%

60-69 | 0.7% | 0.9% | 1.1%

70-79 | 1.8% | 2.4% | 2.9%

80+ | 3.4% | 4.4% | 5.5%

-----------------------------

Total | 0.4% | 0.5% | 0.6%

Same "I don't like the agenda I suspect this is intended to push" rationale behind the censorship.

Counterargument: characterizing a comment literally asking a question of the commenter as a (ahem) "drive to censor" is even more of a "political extrapolation".

I wasn't suggesting that the commenter was pushing to censor. Just that the same kinds of extrapolations are the motivation and given-justification for a lot of censorship. I do concede that it was an off tangent point.

The comment very much did not just ask a question. It specifically mentioned trying to find out what the argument is, and mentioned inferring a libertarian bent where none existed.

> did not just ask a question. It specifically mentioned trying to find out what the argument is,

Trying to think of a scenario were "asking a question" and "trying to find out what the argument is" are not synonyms...

Canada may say "you're welcome", but does the US say "thanks"? Not under the current administration! Ok, they might care about the bald eagle, but other than that, Republican economic interests (real or imagined) will always trump (heh) environmental concerns:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-yearslong-war-de...

Even here in Canada it's been amazing to see them return to areas where they were gone (southern Ontario, etc). There's a population of them now in Coote's Paradise here in Hamilton. Apparently after a 50 year absence.

https://www.rbg.ca/plants-conservation/nature-sanctuaries/co...

Huh. I'll have look out for them.

There are tons of bald eagles in British Columbia. I see them all the time.

This part of Florida was lousy with them when I moved here in the early 90s. And FTR, this area was like Canada South then. Tons of snowbirds.

Everything changes. I haven't seen a bald eagle in a decade or two. I still see Canadians but not a lot. Our forever warming winters are changing what snowbird season is like.

Well, you'll see a lot fewer of us this winter and at least the next 3 after and it won't be because of the changing planetary climate.

Honestly, FL sucks more+more from every angle. I'm baffled why anyone wants to move here.

I've never been, only ever heard bad things.

Except for Manatees. I really want to see some Manatees. So beautiful.

Just go already. Florida has outstanding state parks and natural areas. Many of them will be gone forever soon(ish).

Spend much of your time there camping at the parks or in cheap hotels, buy food at grocery stores, etc. Stay away from the rich/expensive areas and you won’t contribute much of anything to the craziness of the place. You’ll also find that the average Floridian isn’t nearly as crazy as you thought.

Some day. Not now. Like many Canadians I intend on spending my money at home or in Europe for the next 4 years.

And, as a famous but terrible Canadian once said, "I have more than enough to eat at home."

There's Manatees in Cuba, too.

Fair enough. But the tiniest RV you can get away with, bringing your own kayaks and SUPs, folding lawn chairs, etc - you’ll see/experience the parts worth seeing/experiencing and only give a few dollars to the shitbags. You’ll be the winner of that bargain.

Manatees are cool. They pop up regularly in some waterways near here. They're the only non-mundane animal I still see like I did in the 90s. And turkeys. Lots of turkeys lately, bigger too.

USD <> CAD exchange rate is rough right now so lots of snowbirds aren’t going lately.

Our housing prices are 5x above the 1990s. Besides 06-08, there was a steady, steep rise from 2016-2020, then everything doubled at once.

I think the Canadian exodus away from here has been going on for well over a decade. Temps and prices never stop climbing.

Wait til you get a sniff at Canadian housing prices. The most insane in the G7.

Imagine paying >$1M for a modest 3 bedroom home and still having to shovel snow and have to endure weather where the air hurts your face.

Yea, looks like the median house price in Tampa is $USD 450k. The median house price in Calgary is $CAD 600k which is in the same ballpark, and I wouldn’t even consider Calgary a “nice place”.

If you want to live in a nice place like anywhere in British Columbia you are paying $750k for something built in the 80s with 4 walls and a roof.

You're not welcome for the Canadian Geese.

You don't like cobra chickens? And their copious poops?

Actually the goslings are adorable. There's a park nearby where they excessively congregate and I love to take pictures of the little floofballs being all awkward and floofy.

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