cover image Eagle's Plume: The Struggle to Preserve the Life and Haunts of America's Bald Eagle

Eagle's Plume: The Struggle to Preserve the Life and Haunts of America's Bald Eagle

Bruce E. Beans. Scribner Book Company, $24.5 (318pp) ISBN 978-0-684-80696-9

Since 1970, action by government, organizations and individuals has brought the bald eagle from the brink of extinction to a measure of recovery; it is now listed as threatened instead of endangered. Environmental writer Beans here spins a captivating story of the eagle's significance in American culture and its current status in the American wilderness. In Florida, a retired Canadian banker spent more than 20 winters banding eaglets; in a New Jersey swamp, a biologist built an artificial nest to attract nesting birds; in the West, undercover agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pursued a widespread traffic in eagle parts and feathers. Beans charts the eagle's comeback in New Jersey, Virginia and Florida; problems of habitat destruction and pollution remain. In Alaska, he finds the nation's greatest congregation of eagles on the Chilkat River, now a bald eagle preserve. An inspiring volume for the environmental bookshelf. (Sept.)