Last week, I saw a kid at the gas station wearing jean shorts, a mullet down to his shoulders, and a T-shirt made out of American flags.
Now, I admittedly live in a more rural, conservative area, but everywhere I look lately people seem patriotic. Flags are raised in dozens of houses in my neighborhood, and the pledge of allegiance is stamped on trucker hats. Red, white, and blue is everywhere. And with America’s 250th birthday coming up, sometimes it feels like we’re one hair band away from a full-blown Reagan revival (Greta Van Fleet?).
But the biggest symbol of patriotism I’ve seen lately in Michigan isn’t bumper stickers or T-shirts. It’s in the sky.
Bald eagles are everywhere.
Growing up, a bald eagle was a legend more than a bird. They were something I read about in textbooks and saw on currency, but never expected to actually see in person. Seeing a bald eagle in the 1980s and ’90s felt like finding Bigfoot in your backyard.
But bald eagles are all the way back in Michigan.
The numbers were falling due to a pesticide widely used in agriculture (DDT). The population reached a low point of just 52 breeding pairs in 1961. Our national bird was getting wiped out by bug spray.
Michigan finally made the connection and banned DDT in 1969, three years ahead of a nationwide ban. Once the poisoning stopped, Michigan worked hard to bring the population back to healthy numbers.
This involved breeding programs, protected nesting sites, and federal tracking that monitored contaminant levels and kept tracked population numbers.
By 2020, Michigan was back up to around 1,000 breeding pairs, an almost 20-fold increase from their lowest point. An incredible feat and something that is truly impressive.
I now see bald eagles all the time. A couple live on the river in my backyard during the winter. In the summer, three of them hang around the lake behind my family cabin. My uncle has developed a friendship with one of them. They’re fishing buddies.
He’ll catch a fish and hold it high in the air. Then he’ll smack it on the head (to stun it) before tossing it into the water. A pair of giant brown wings will start beating at the top of a tree along the water’s edge. and in no time, that big bird swoops down to grab it like it’s been waiting for room service. It’s an incredible thing to see, totally unthinkable for me as a boy.
Bald eagles are back, and the timing couldn’t be better.
That kid at the gas station in his flag shirt will never know what it was like when seeing an eagle was impossible. For him, patriotism and eagles both just are. Maybe that’s the real victory. It’s not just that we saved them, but that a whole generation gets to grow up with both as part of their everyday world.
Eagles are back and so is the hope they represent.
Tom Zandstra is a passionate outdoorsman and CEO of The Fair Chase. Follow him on X @TheFairChase1.
