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Bald
eagles are a very important part of the environment.
By eating dead animal matter, they help with nature's
clean-up process. Bald eagles are also hunters,
so they keep animal populations strong. They do
this by killing weak, old, and slower animals,
leaving only the healthiest to survive.
The
bald eagle is the national symbol of the United
States of America, so when it became threatened
with extinction in the 1960s due to pesticide
use, habitat loss, and other problems created
by humans, people took notice.
For
years the bald eagle was listed as endangered
under the Endangered Species Act. Now the number
of bald eagles has increased so much that in June
1994, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed
that they be downgraded from endangered status
to the less urgent status of threatened in all
but three of the lower 48 states. The success
of the bald eagle is a tribute to the Endangered
Species Act and is an incentive for increased
awareness and conservation everywhere.
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