Most of the geographical range of the Bald Eagle is now occupied by human

settlements. It is not a bird of the mountains, as the Golden Eagle is, and
it does not 
range far north. Except for extending northward along the coast of British
Columbia 
and southern Alaska, it is confined to the United States and adjacent parts
of Canada, 
and still further confined/ (except as a transient) to the vicinity of the
sea and the 
larger inland lakes and rivers where alone it can find a living. Its extinction
is much 
more imminent than most people realize. Many of the individuals that survive
today 
appear to have abandoned all efforts to breed, owing to repeated destruction
of their 
nests and mates. They roam about, revisiting some of their old haunts year
after year, 
for eagles are long lived birds, but when they in turn fall a victim to some
sportsman 
or meet with some other end, they will leave no descendants to take their
places. 
The Bald Eagle is not at all the fierce and rapacious creature eager to 
attack any human being in sight, and feeding principally on young deer. 
calves, lambs and pigs, varied by an occasional baby, that sensational stories

and newspaper items have led many to believe. The accusations against it

contained in the works of early writers on American ornithology which have

been quoted from one book to another without investigation, cannot be con-

firmed by modern observations which show that it feeds very largely on 
carrion and dead fish and offal that it picks up along the shores of the
sea 
or the inland waters that it frequents. Though capable of swift flight, it

is too large and heavy to manouver easily. It can as a rule catch living

game only when it gets it at some disadvantage in open places or over water.

There are many reports of its seizing wounded birds before the hunter can

retrieve them, but it takes this risk of being shot itself because of its
difficulty 
in catching uninjured and healthy ones. No economic advantage and no 
benefit to the game situation can result from the extinction of the Bald
Eagle. 
The Bald Eagle is now so far on the road to extermination in the United 
States proper that its case there is probably already hopeless. Only on the

coasts of British Columbia and southern Alaska did the Bald Eagle have a

chance of permanent survival. In these regions the vast extent of coast line,

the innumerable rocky islands, the strong tides with great rise and fall
which 
leave stranded on the shore plenty of dead fish and an abundance of marine

life, dead and living, on which the eagle can feed, and the sparse settlement

make an ideal place for such a bird, and up to a few years ago the Bald 
Eagle was extraordinarily numerous there for such a large species. There

it might have been allowed to survive. 
THE ALASKA EAGLE BOUNTY LAW AT PRESENT THE CHIEF FACTOR 
IN THE EXTINCTION OF THE BALD EAGLE 
The Biological Survey Is the Bureau Responsible for Its Continuance 
Beginning in April, 1917, when the American public had quite a 
number of other things to think about, the territorial legislature of Alaska

started paying a bounty of 50 cents each on eagles. In 1923 this was 
increased to one dollar, and this bounty law is still in force. As long ago

as September, 1926, the official records show that the astonishing number
of 
41,812 bounties on eagles had been paid by the Alaskan government, and 
the number is now at least 50,000. It seems impossible to understand how

such numbers of eagles can have existed or been killed in Alaska in thirteen

years, especially when we consider that beside the birds actually taken and

their claws brought in to claim the bounty as the law provides, many others