I know I’m probably over simplifying this. I managed to get a picture of a couple eagles last week. Not that they are hard to come by. Eagles seem to be everywhere these days.
It wasn’t always that way. When I was younger (just slightly after dinosaurs roamed the earth) you hardly ever saw an eagle. They were pretty much gone. Then things changed.
Eagles had been driven to the edge of extinction largely due to use of pesticides like DDT. There was talk of banning DDT. There was also talk of us being carried off by hordes of insects, and massive crop failures. We needed pesticides. DDT still was banned. New pesticides came along. We won’t get into whether or not that’s good or bad. The fact is, eagles rebounded big time. A bird that was an extremely rare sight is now fairly common.
For me, the eagle should be a symbol of what is possible if we truly want to change things. I know it has great meaning to indigenous cultures. It is the national bird of the United States. It is also a scavenger, so you can debate whether or not it deserves all the adulation. Fact is, it’s pretty much a turkey vulture with better hair. But we almost wiped them out, and they managed to come back.
For those who may throw up their hands and think it is too late to do anything about climate change, ask an eagle. I think they might disagree.
