Herald A Lantern 30 December 81

1982: The Year of the Eagle

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Great Seal of U.S % Editor's Note: Reading this article should rein/Srce in, readers' mind Ihe signlficdhcc of the Jersey Cape as an important natural .habitat, especially for the spring and fall bird mlgratipns. During last year's annual Cape May dhristmas Bird Count, among the more than J50 species of birds recorded were two bpld eagles and one golden eagle, the latter the first seen in this arta in 44 years.) If you’ve ever studied the backside of a dollar bill you ' know that America’s national bird, the bald eagle, t clutches an olive branch in his right talon and 13 arNew Year’s Custom’s. (From Page 12) of the king mdant a new beginning for him, even if it did reduce him to having his nose tweaked and his ears boxed. The culmination of the festivities, it is thought, was the celebration of new birth with feasts and the restoration of order. Even the'ancient Greeks carried a baby around in a basket as a symbol of the new year long before we ever thought of parading a young one with the year printed on his diaper. So, this New Year's Eve, as the gray, decrepit man representing the old year staggers out ypur door and the bright-eyed baby, the new year, bdmces in, take a moment to Reflect. As you stare into the punch bowl and review the past 365 days, look to the future, too. In a thousand years, others might be staring into a punch bowl, wondering how people celebrated a new year in the 1980s. Kathryn Lindeman wrote \fhl» for the Smithsonian N^Ws Service.

rows in the left^symbolizing Ariierica’s desire for peace and its willingness to fight for freedom. And nearly every ' schoolchild knows that the bald eagle is now an endangered species throughout most, of its former range. Once abundant from coast to-coast, these big, fierce-looking birds are now numerous only in Alaska and Canada. BUT FEW PEOPLE realize that the bald'eagle wasn't even on the list of contenders when three.of the nation's founding fat|ier8--Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin—were named by the Continental Congress to design our na- . tional seal and symbol That was on July 4. 1776. the same day the colonist's declared their independence from England. It tobk six years, three committees,, and several artists to come up with a seal featuring the nowfamiliar spread eagle, according to the current issue of National Wildlife magazine. The original blue-ribbon committee leaned toward mythological and Biblical figures, the magazine reports, and apparently the only other animal considered for appearance on the seal was the sloth—a slow-moving, tree dwelling tropical creature associated with laziness and indolence. THE STORY of how the bald-eagle beat out the sloth—and other characters—is told in the bimonthly publication of the National Wildlife Federation as the nation prepares to observe 1982 as “The Year of the Eagle." Resolutions are pending in both houses of Congress to commemorate June 20, 1982, as the 200th anniversary of the day the Continental Congress adopted the eagle as our national symbol. The sloth, a native of Central and South America usually seen hanging upside down, appeared in a seal design suggested by John A^ams. In Adam's allegorical scene, the mythical Greek hero Hercules was torn between the charms of a maidei representing Virtue am

the tempting life of the sloth. Franklin called for a depiction of Moses dividing the Red Sea: Jefferson wanted .to show the children of Isreal wandering through the wilderness. Fortunately, the Congress wasn't thrilled by any of the founding fathers' designs, nor was it moved by a second committee's proposed seal depicting on a shield a warrior and a figure representing Peace THE EAGLE didn't show up an any proposed designs until a third committee was formed, and even then, the bird played a minor role in another allegorical scene Finally, in 1782, Congress turned the matter over to its secretary. Qharles

Thomson, who gets credit for first using the eagle as the Central element in the seal's design. One member of the original committee. Ben Franklin, was unimpressed even after the Congress adopted a seal designed around the eagle Frankfin called the new > national symbol ‘a bird of bad moral character'' that "does not get his living hbnestly,'' referring to the fact that the bald eagle often steals its food from other birds. Franklin also w r o t e* —p e r h a p s facetiously—that although the tyrkey was “vain and silly" he would have preferred it as the national emblem.

c anklin was/ by no meaas the last Afnefican to criticize the eagle For the nexi 150 years frontiersmen. ranchers, and farmers gunned them down as predators and varmits Not until 1940 did Congress outlaw the shooting of eagles. BECAUSE THEY sometimes feed on dead ^nimals. bald eagles are ’still' put 1 down by some

critics as scavengers, but President Kennedy ' spoke for most Americans 20 years ago, says National Wildlife, when he called the “fierce beauty and /independence of this great bird'"an apt symbol of the "strength and freedom of America " Now, throughout most of the country, the bald eagle w struggling, not to mam tain its honor but to survive as a species Due to loss of habitat, the ingestion of .deadly pesticides, illegal shooting, and other causes * it is listed as "endangered - ’in.43 of the lower 48 states and "threatened” in Ihe other five Oregon. Washington. Minnesota. Wisconsin and Michigan

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