It is on our passports and our greenback payments, however the Bald Eagle has by no means formally been designated the U.S. nationwide hen. However because of a bipartisan effort, that “historic oversight” might change this yr.
From the Autumn 2024 subject of Dwelling Chicken journal. Subscribe now.
It’s a common axiom that Congress doesn’t move a lot laws in an election yr, and that’s very true in right this moment’s polarized occasions. However lawmakers are getting behind one invoice with unmistakable bipartisan enchantment: designating the Bald Eagle as America’s nationwide hen.
The proposed congressional act would formally acknowledge an eagle that already graces the Nice Seal of the US, clutching an olive department in a single talon and arrows within the different (an old-school model of “peace by way of power”). Most Individuals, understandably, most likely suppose the Bald Eagle is already the nationwide hen.
However neither Congress nor any of the 45 presidents have ever prolonged that honor to Haliaeetus leucocephalus.
“The invoice is critical as a result of it corrects a historic oversight, underscores the Bald Eagle’s cultural and symbolic significance to the American folks, and highlights a significant conservation success story,” says Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. She sponsored the Bald Eagle invoice with fellow Minnesota Democrat Sen. Tina Smith in addition to two Republicans—Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.
“There may be nothing extra American than a Bald Eagle hovering throughout the Wyoming sky,” stated Sen. Lummis in a press release when the invoice was launched. “These majestic creatures have lengthy been considered because the official hen of this nation and it’s previous time we made it official with out costing taxpayers a single cent.”
The invoice is the brainchild of Preston Cook dinner, creator of the 2019 guide American Eagle: A Visible Historical past of Our Nationwide Emblem. Cook dinner, a former San Francisco actual property developer, is an avid collector of eagle memorabilia—together with books, images, stamps, even Bald Eagle jewellery. He began his assortment with a pair of brass buttons stamped with an eagle from his U.S. Military uniform within the Nineteen Sixties; when he was discharged, he had the eagle buttons sewn into his blazer, and he’s added them to successive generations of blazers since then.
Over time his Bald Eagle collection grew into greater than 40,000 artiinfo. So huge he determined his assortment wanted a brand new dwelling.
“I bought uninterested in being referred to as a hoarder and I assumed I must be referred to as a donor as a substitute,” Cook dinner says.
He needed to maneuver his assortment to part of the nation with a particular connection to the Bald Eagle. Then he visited the small city of Wabasha, Minnesota, on the banks of the Mississippi River—which serves as a significant flyway for migratory eagles. Wabasha payments itself the “Eagle Capital of America,” hosts a winter eagle-watching competition, and is dwelling of the Nationwide Eagle Heart, about 85 miles southeast of Minneapolis.
“I favored the city. I favored the placement. I favored what the eagle middle was doing,” Cook dinner says. “Wabasha was an ideal vacation spot.”
The Preston Cook dinner American Eagle Assortment opened to the general public in Wabasha in 2022, in an exhibit excessivelighting the eagle in American tradition. Quickly thereafter, Cook dinner and his spouse Donna moved from San Francisco to the small Minnesota city as nicely. That’s when Cook dinner began analysis for his mammoth coffee-table guide. As he tried to dig up the origin story of the Bald Eagle as America’s official hen, he got here up empty.
“I couldn’t discover any congressional motion or presidential proclamation that it’s our nationwide hen,” Cook dinner remembers. So he reached out to the late California Sen. Dianne Feinstein to get some clarification. Feinstein, in flip, contacted the Nationwide Archives.
She wrote again in September 2011, noting that the founding fathers adopted the official seal of the US featuring the Bald Eagle through the Second Continental Congress in 1782. However “no laws has been handed to designate the American Bald Eagle as our official ‘nationwide hen,’” she wrote.
In different phrases, Cook dinner realized, “We don’t have a nationwide hen. We’ve by no means had a designation of a nationwide hen.” He famous that the US has a nationwide flower (the rose), a nationwide tree (the oak), even a nationwide mammal (the bison, after President Barack Obama signed a legislation designating it so in 2016).
In 2023 Cook dinner grew to become cochair of the eagle middle’s Nationwide Chicken Initiative, with a objective so as to add the Bald Eagle to its rightful perch.
“I wrote a quite simple piece of laws that the eagle can be our nationwide hen,” Cook dinner says. He introduced the draft to his native congressman, Republican Brad Finstad of Minnesota’s First Congressional District, and to Sen. Klobuchar.
In accordance with Cook dinner, the Bald Eagle deserves official nationwide hen standing as a result of it has many traits in frequent with Individuals.
“It’s freedom and energy,” he says. “It’s independence and … it’s a household hen. They mate for all times. It means all of these issues.”
Sen. Klobuchar agreed and promptly picked up the laws for introduction into the Senate.
“The Bald Eagle has been a core a part of our state’s wildlife,” Sen. Klobuchar stated, noting the excessive inhabitants of breeding eagles in Minnesota. “The Nationwide Eagle Heart has performed nice conservation work to make sure this majestic animal continues to thrive.”
As of mid-August 2024, Rep. Finstad’s invoice within the Home had a dozen cosponsors, together with each Republicans and Democrats.
“For the reason that founding of our nation, the Bald Eagle has existed as a symbol of our nation’s independence, power, and freedom,” Finstad stated in a press release when he launched the invoice. “I’m proud to introduce this laws which is able to formally classify the Bald Eagle because the nationwide hen—its correct place of honor as an integral a part of our nationwide identification.”
It took barely a month for the Senate invoice to win passage, which is light-speed for Congress lately. Sen. Klobuchar says she isn’t stunned.
“The Bald Eagle holds a particular place within the hearts of all Individuals,” she says.
Now the Home invoice has gained the assist of each member of the Minnesota delegation, in addition to extra cosponsors from Washington, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Kentucky. The Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes, which represents roughly three dozen sovereign Tribal nations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan, has helped line up assist from senators and representatives with important Indigenous populations.
Eagle invoice supporters hope the Home will speedily move the laws by this fall, with a presidential signature earlier than the top of the present time period. One of the best case for nationalizing the Bald Eagle might have been acknowledged 5 years in the past, within the opening pages of Preston Cook dinner’s guide.
“The Bald Eagle’s spectacular stature and pure the Aristocracy are suitable with the notion of independence that continues to be part of American identification,” Cook dinner wrote, “and which the eagle nonetheless eloquently represents after greater than 200 years.”
In regards to the Writer
Frederic J. Frommer writes in regards to the environment, sports activities, and politics, and is the creator of a number of books, together with You Gotta Have Coronary heart: Washington Baseball from Walter Johnson to the 2019 World Collection Champion Nationals. He lives in Washington, D.C., along with his spouse and two sons. Comply with him @ffrommer on X.