Template:Friend of the Week

It's hard to think of an animal more closely tied to a modern nation than the Bald Eagle and the United States. This large bird of prey is world famous as national symbol of the American people, and its likeness is used in both praise and criticism alike. From 1782 onward, when the Philadelphia Congress adopted the bird's imagery for use in the national seal, it became the USA's national bird and symbolic of the country across its ever-eventful history. Fittingly, the bald eagle itself is endemic to the North American continent and the majority of its range is within the United States' national borders.

With no natural predators to speak of, the bald eagle enjoys a dominant position in the North American foodchain, preying primarily on fish but also on a variety of mammals and other birds. It often nests in conifers near bodies of water, giving the bird access to drinking water as well as fish to eat. The bald eagle typically mates with a single partner for its entire life, and in many cases returns to the same nest year after year, building it up over time with more and more sticks. Both migratory and non-migratory bald eagles exist, with northern birds migrating as part of their yearly routine and southern ones staying put in their breeding territory year-round. They lay 1-3 eggs per breeding cycle, which hatch into adorable eaglets. The eaglets fledge after 11 weeks, but remain dependent on their parents for several weeks afterwards.

Contrary to a popular misunderstanding, the "bald" in animal's name is derived from "piebald", an obscure word meaning "spotted with two different colours", owing to the bald eagle's plumage. The majority of its feathers are a dark brown, but its rectrices and the feathers on its head are white, giving the bird its easily recognisable and distinct appearance.

In true irony, the bald eagle's main threat was not other animals but the American people themselves -- habitat destruction, hunting and chemical poisoning caused a steep decline of the animal's population during the mid-1900s. Realising the severity of the situation and the fearing the extinction of a national symbol, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act was passed in 1940 and then amended through the 1960s and early 1970s, accumulating in the total ban of Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) in the United States, which had become a major factor in the species' decline. These actions enabled the bald eagle to rebound entirely, and in 2007 it was removed from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's list of endangered and threatened species.