THE AUDUBON BULLETIN 
Published Quarterly by the 
ILLINOIS AUDUBON SOCIETY 
Roosevelt Road and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IIl., 60605 
Number 129 March, 1964 
THE PRESIDENT'S PAGE 
By Raymond Mostek 
The National Audubon Convention: The opportunity to attend the National 
Audubon Society convention in Miami, Florida, last November was well 
nigh irresistible; I had never been to Florida before, had never attended 
the national convention, and had never traveled so far by airplane. Perhaps 
others felt the same way, for over 747 members and delegates attended the 
Miami meeting at the Everglades Hotel, at Bayfront Park. Four foreign 
countries and 38 states were represented. 
The Grand Ballroom of the hotel was decorated with excellent black 
and white photographs of plants, animals, and scenic views of our national 
parks — the work of Dan Thornton, long-time President of the Tropical 
Audubon Society of Miami. 
After a brief welcome by N.A.S. President Carl W. Buchheister, the 
delegates heard several talks on the plight of the Bald Eagle and Golden 
Eagle. Sandy Sprunt IV said that there has been a slight over all drop 
in the number of Bald Eagles reported, but that Illinois showed a slight 
increase. Forty-four states reported eagles; New Hampshire, Rhode Island, 
Georgia, and West Va. had none. Sprunt explained that more Bald Eagles 
are found in Florida in January than in any other state. He also said that 
487 eagle nests were observed last year, that scientists believe poisonous 
insecticides cause the low production of young, and that eagles roost in 
Everglades National Park every summer. 
Dr. Walter Spofford, of the State University at Syracuse, New York, 
reported on his studies of the Golden Eagle in the Southwest. He estimated 
that about 10,000 Golden Eagles are left in the country. The Golden Eagle 
is a relatively rare bird, with a breeding population spread over vast 
regions of the United States; it breeds very slowly, and normally nests 
for the first time only at five years of age, averaging one young in alternate 
years. In the 20-year period between 1942 and 1962, it is estimated that 
over 20,000 Golden Eagles were slaughtered in the sheep and goat ranching 
aras of Texas and New Mexico, largely by paid gunners shooting from air- 
planes. A recent amendment to the Bald Eagles Act of 1940, supported by 
Audubon groups across the nation, has ended this miserable butchery. 
Dr. Spofford recommended that use of traps and poisons, such as 1080, 
also be expressly prohibited. 
Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, author of “The Quiet Crisis,” 
and a long time conservationist, hiker, and mountain climber, announced 
the good news that seven new Whooping Cranes had been sighted at the 
Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, and that two nests of the Everglade 
Kite had been located. Only ten of these birds are known to exist. Udall 
declared that a few of the rare species of Canada Goose found on the 
Aleutian Islands in Alaska will be transferred to Colorado, and that some 
of the young will be transferred to small islands in the Aleutian chain 
which have been cleared of the foxes that preyed on them elsewhere. 
he 
