Theatrics of Alaska's Bald Eagles

This crow wouldn't stand a chance

'Here's looking at you'

 Many people are amazing at the number of Bald Eagles encountered when they visit Alaska. During the summer, especially when the salmon start returning to the rivers, eagles are probably the most abundant bird species that one sees. In fact, on many of my weeklong trips that I run I often have guests who stop taking pictures of eagles towards the end, because they have so many pictures already.

For Eagle Fans

  But for me, there is just something regal about bald eagles. It makes it easy to understand why they were chosen as our National bird. Every once in a while they will be acting up, and the pictures come out looking more comical than regal. Here are a few of those pictures from my most recent photo shoot with these interesting birds. You can check out a post from a year ago from my favorite eagle photo session up near Homer, Alaska.

  I am quite pleased that these eagles have survived in such numbers here. In the rest of the United States their numbers have dwindled due to pesticides working their way into the eagle's system and eggs. That wasn't a big issue here in Alaska luckily. However, in the early and mid 1900's, there was a common misconception that eagles were eating all of the salmon so a 50 cent bounty was placed on their heads. This was later raised to a $2.00 bounty, which ultimately claimed the lives of some 128,000 birds here in Alaska. The bounty lasted from 1917 to 1953.

A weekly newspaper captured the prevailing sentiment in 1920: “The eagle is a curse to the rest of the animal kingdom and the sooner it is exterminated the better off the game will be,” opined the Valdez Miner.

By 1953, anti-eagle-hunting sentiment won out, and the bounty ended. Based on Alaska treasury records for bounty payouts, its citizens turned in over 120,000 pairs of eagle talons.

“Gone, probably forever, were the days when a pair of shriveled eagle claws hanging on the wall behind the cook stove in a Last Frontier cabin was the equivalent of two bucks in the bank,” wrote Alaska historian William DeArmond.

High Res Alaska Wildlife Pictures for Sale