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servation monitoring will shift to state agencies and private organizations.
The 1972 banning of DDT for most uses, as well as the phasing out of lead shot for waterfowl hunting during the 1990s, were major factors in the bald eagle's recovery. But the Endangered Species Act, with its emphasis on habitat protection, has played a major role as well.
One critter's habitat, though, can also be a landowner's property, and the ESA remains controversial because it can crowd what some see as property rights. Environmentalists and other supporters say the eagle's good-news story is proof that the law works and has prevented many more species from going extinct. Critics, including many conservatives, note that just a handful of more than 1,200 listed plant and animal species have totally revived under costly recovery plans that can take years to implement or even to design. The US House has passed a bill that changes several fundamental elements of the law, including protection of wildlife habitat and the reimbursement of property owners.
Throughout history, the bald eagle has always engendered its share of controversy. Even though the Continental Congress approved its image for the national seal in 1782, Benjamin Franklin, for one, considered it a bird of "bad moral character."
"He does not get his living honestly," Mr. Franklin declared, referring to the eagle's propensity for stealing fish from hawks.
While admitting that his choice for national symbol, the turkey, was "a little vain and silly," Franklin saw it as a bird of courage that would "not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on." Congress disagreed.
Two centuries later, the eagle had become revered enough that then-US Attorney General John Ashcroft, an amateur baritone, composed a patriotic song titled: "Let the Eagle Soar."
But it's not political warblers that are on the minds of those who come to what's been called "the Everglades of the West." "There's always something going on that's exciting to a naturalist," says Frank Lang, a retired Southern Oregon University biology professor. He comes back again and again - to take in the waterfowl and songbirds that pass through every year, to hear the hawk's whistle and the coyote's yip, to stand in the shifting light of the high desert.
What it comes down to, says Dave Eshbaugh, executive director of Audubon Oregon, is "something that connects people to a feeling they have deep inside themselves, a feeling of connection with wildlife and nature."
But it's the eagles that are the top attraction. And exotic as they may be, some feel they're a lot like us. "We're at the top of the food chain and eagles are too," says retired state biologist Ralph Opp. "They do have some habits that people look down on. They are scavengers, but no different than people. We go where it's easy, and if we have to work for our food we will."
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