lished in this country is the series 

 of documents by Dr. Francis H. 

 Herrick based on his studies of this 

 bird at nesting sites in northern 

 Ohio, made over a period of many 

 years. Outstanding also is the 

 study of the bald eagle in Florida 

 carried on for many years by 

 Charles L. Broley, who, to a greater 

 extent than any other individual, 

 has banded juvenile bald eagles and 

 leported on their movements. 

 Shorter articles and notes that have 

 appeared in ornithological journals 



are legion, and only a significant 

 few could be drawn upon in the 

 preparation of this text. Appre- 

 ciation for employment of numer- 

 ous published notes is expressed 

 collectively at this point. 



Acknowledgment also is made of 

 assistance given by the managers 

 of national wildlife refuges 

 throughout the country who have 

 submitted information on the 

 abundance and economic status of 

 the bald eagle on areas under their 

 jurisdiction. 



RANGE AND ABUNDANCE 



The bald eagle in its two subspe- 

 cific forms, Haliaeetus leucocefha- 

 lus leucocephalus (Linnaeus) and 

 H. I. washingtonii Audubon, is es- 

 sentially a North American bird. 

 The northern form {washingtonii) 

 is found from northeastern Siberia 

 (formerly), northwestern Alaska, 

 Mackenzie, Manitoba, northeastern 

 Quebec, and Newfoundland, south- 

 wardly across the continent where 

 it intergrades with the southern 

 form in a broad belt across the mid- 

 section of the United States (Fried- 

 mann 1950). South of the area of 

 integration, the southern form 

 ranges eastward from Baja 

 (Lower) California, Arizona, New 

 Mexico, and Texas to Florida, and 

 southwardly to the Gulf of Mexico. 



Throughout this continent-wide 

 range, the bald eagle is most com- 

 mon in the vicinity of the seacoast 

 or bodies of fresh water where it is 

 assured an ample supply of its sta- 

 ple food, fish. For that reason, 

 concentrations are found in South- 

 eastern Alaska, around the Great 



Lakes, and at points along the At- 

 lantic coast, especially in the vicin- 

 ity of Chesapeake Bay, and in 

 Florida. Migration also concen- 

 trates numbers of bald eagles in 

 winter along the Mississippi and 

 other large rivers in Illinois, Iowa, 

 and Missouri, and even westward in 

 Oklahoma. 



In recent years, there has been an 

 appreciable reduction in bald eagle 

 numbers in many areas in the 

 United States where these birds 

 formerly were abundant. J. C. 

 Howell (1937, 1941) has pointed 

 out that in a section of northeastern 

 Florida where Dr. William L. 

 Ralph found more than 100 occu- 

 pied nests in 1886, only 24 were lo- 

 cated in 1935. In his more recent 

 appraisal of that population, How- 

 ell (1949) stated that during the 

 period 1935-46 the nesting popula- 

 tion had decreased almost 30 per- 

 cent. This was corroborated by 

 Broley (1950, 1951, 1952) who has 

 noted a pronounced reduction in the 

 number of nesting eagles in Florida 



