From the Spring 2025 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now.
Just before the end of 2024, the Bald Eagle finally became the national bird of the United States, when President Joe Biden signed legislation that gives the majestic creature its rightful, if long-delayed, perch atop America’s birds.
Until now, no American president or Congress had ever officially recognized Haliaeetus leucocephalus as the nation’s official bird, even though the Bald Eagle was already the starring attraction on the Great Seal of the United States, with an olive branch in one talon and arrows in the other. In 1969, when the Apollo 11 lunar module, Eagle, touched down on the moon, astronaut Neil Armstrong immortalized the moment by declaring, “The Eagle has landed.”
The idea for the legislation came from Preston Cook, an avid eagle memorabilia collector and author of the 2019 book American Eagle: A Visual History of Our National Emblem.
“Our Bald Eagle has two wings, a right wing and a left wing, and a body middle, representing all Americans,” Cook said at a celebration of the bill’s passage at the National Eagle Center in late December. The eagle, he said, is “a symbol of freedom, liberty, independence, strength, family, and patriotism.”
The National Eagle Center is located in Wabasha, Minnesota, a small town on the banks of the Mississippi River that sits along a major flyway for migratory eagles. The eagle center houses the Preston Cook American Eagle Collection, which features more than 40,000 pieces of art, historical artifacts, and memorabilia that celebrate the Bald Eagle in American culture.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who sponsored the bill, also spoke at the celebration.
“The strength, the tenacity, and relentlessness of the Bald Eagle match the people in this room,” Klobuchar said, according to a WCCO news story. “Those values of freedom, we think of the eagle, soaring over these beautiful rivers, the values of being stewards of our land, which this area is all about here.”
Local U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad, a Republican representing Minnesota’s First Congressional District who sponsored the Bald Eagle bill in the House, said in a statement that Americans have long revered the Bald Eagle “as the unquestionable icon of the United States.” With the new law, he added, “we rightfully recognize the Bald Eagle as our official national bird—bestowing an honor that is long overdue.”
The bipartisan bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent in July; the House approved it in mid-December, in the waning days of the lame-duck session. President Biden signed it on December 24.
About the Author
Frederic J. Frommer is a freelance journalist who writes about the environment and politics from his home in Washington, D.C.
