Well, there you go. Eagles don’t pay taxes, so screw ‘em! I think it’s pretty clear that there is a constant battle between
humans and nature with regard to land use, and humans continue to win most of the time. Sure, you read an occasional
story of how one person supposedly can’t use (read, ‘develop’) his land because some endangered species is inhabiting it.
But, look around you. Is development really not happening anymore? Gosh, it’s pretty much eating up the land all across
the U.S., isn’t it? So, as our population gets larger, and as we continue to develop the land for mega-houses and malls and so
forth, what is the theoretical limit? How much nature do we have to leave unmolested for nature to survive? It isn’t a philosophical
point, it is a part of reality that we will have to deal with, someday.

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Following up on my Santa Catalina Island post on nesting eagles, here is a story from NPR on the aftermath of the recent fire on the island. The outlook may be ok, as some of the creatures that call Catalina home are native to the Channel Islands, and are therefore used to periodic fires. Time will tell, but for now, you can still find your love in Avalon.

• Santa Catalina Island post conflagration

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One very obvious contributor to world climate change doesn’t seem to get a lot of press, lately. Deforestation has been the focus of conservationists for some decades now, especially the destruction of equatorial rain forests in Brazil and Asia. Recently, however, it has lost its place in the media due to the attention brought to the effects of industry, energy production and autos on the global CO2 budget. These things tend to be cyclical, to be sure, but the CO2 absorption budget represented by the world’s forests is massive, and to allow continued deforestation would create a great peril to a balanced world climate.

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Why do you go to the airport? To fly of course! And so do the eagles, apparently, in Sanford Florida. Some baby eagles have been removed from their nest, because the FAA has declared them and their parents a flight hazard; one eagle has already been killed in a collision with a plane.

• Eagles at the Airport

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While, Nat King Cole may have found his love in Avalon, wildlife biologist have found two newly hatched members of the Accipitridae family. The bald eagle chicks are the first to hatch on Avalon since the 1940s, as the dumping of DDT and PCBs on the island decimated the population by thinning the shells of their eggs. There may even be another set of chicks born next week, with any luck.

• Bald Eagles on Catalina

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Philly, the great historical city that is the home of the Liberty Bell, the U.S. Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, not to
mention some good Philly cheese steak subs, has Bald Eagles! for the first time in something like 200 years. This noble creature is the very symbol of the (at least historic) American commitment to peace backed by strength, as seen in the U.S. Seal, and suggested by an olive branch in the eagle’s right talon and a bundle of arrows in its left. The Bald eagle has fought its way back from extinction in order to nest in this old city of the east. Unfortunately, the very symbol of the US may no longer be protected as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Further, the standard threat of developers may end all of this tragically. Unregulated development is paving over all of the natural beauty of this great country of ours, and so I ask, “Who speaks for the trees?”, or the Eagles for that matter? Maybe the Philly Eagles football team can adopt the pair, and in concert with naturalists, find them a safe Philly home?

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