DHE AUDUBON’ BULLE FEIN 39 
Alaska Eagles Disappearing 
ies the American Eagle in Alaska is disappearing, under the 
Bounty System inaugurated in 1917 by that Territory, is the 
report given out today by Dr. T. Gilbert Pearson, President of the 
National Association of Audubon Societies, who has just returned from 
an extended trip in Alaska. 
“There are many of these Eagles left,” said Dr. Pearson, “‘but from 
what I saw and learned on all hands it is very plain that the bird is far 
less numerous than a few years ago. A day spent hunting Eagles 
between Ketchikan and Haines, a distance of eighty-eight miles, 
resulted in the finding of thirty-seven of these great birds. In other 
sections of the coast I found them scarce. Official records of the bounties . 
paid up to August 4, 1927, as supplied me by Karl Thiele, Secretary of 
Alaska, showed that the feet of 40,753 Eagles had been turned in for the 
$1 bounty (formerly 50 cents).” 
Dr. Pearson also stated that on all sides the Eagles are regarded as 
destructive to fish, Ptarmigans, young mountain sheep, fawns, and young 
blue foxes. “I found it very difficult, however, to find people who had 
actually seen Eagles performing any of these depredations, aside from 
eating fish. Some observers told me that the majority of fish taken by 
the Eagles was on the spawning grounds where after the fish have 
performed their biological functions they lie in a dead or dying condi- 
tion. As many as one or two hundred Eagles often gather along the 
lower reaches of a salmon stream. Suggestion was made to me in various 
quarters that the Eagle had now been so reduced in numbers that Alaska 
might very well discontinue the bounty. Others questioned whether 
Alaska is getting sufficient return for the money expended in the Bounty 
System. The chief center of abundance of the Bald Eagle is along the 
southern coast in the neighborhood of the salmon streams. During 2,000 
miles travel in the interior of Yukon and Alaska I saw only one pair of 
Bald Eagles. In the mountains one finds the Golden Eagle, which in no 
way exists in such abundance as does the Bald Eagle along the coast.” 
oR,» 
