Taking flight: Eagle, others off endangered list

Ever see a bald eagle in the Show-Me State?

Sure, they’ve become a more common sight around the state. They’re not exactly common, but they’re a good deal less rare than they were in decades past. In fact, Missouri not only has the usual winter visitors – we have open water year-round, so they can feed on fish and other things – but the state has about 150 pairs of bald eagles that live here all the time, nesting and raising their young here.

It’s progress, and now the state has removed the bald eagle – as well as the western fox snake and the barn owl – from its endangered species list. Those species still have legal protections, but this is a step in a hopeful direction.

Dozens of plants and animals are on the state’s endangered species list, from the gray bat (Myotis grisescens) to running buffalo clover (Trifolium stoloniferum). Some have federal protection too. Most are in trouble because their habitats are threatened, although bald eagles and other birds of prey hit a low four decades ago thanks to pesticides – since banned – in the food chain. Since that time, they have slowly, surely come back.

Some of the progress comes in perverse ways. Barn owls need open areas, and cutting more forests – mostly in the lowlands of the Mississippi River area – has helped that species. Call it an unintended consequence.

Bald eagles – and several species we no longer see – lived here when Lewis and Clark passed through two centuries ago, but development, pollution and bullets took their toll. Bald eagles disappeared from our state in the early ’60s and only came back a generation later when the state made a specific effort to help them. Now we have hundreds of the magnificent birds. It’s good news.