May 10th, 1998
THE BALD EAGLE IS BACK- BUT FOR HOW LONG?
By Jackie Alan Giuliano
Who are these "leaders" of our nation and controllers of the world’s
economy who seem bound and determined to eradicate what remains of our tenuous connection
with the natural world? How dare they assume power over the earth, the air, the water, and
the animals? How dare they speak of economic viability as the only determiner of our
health?
To make matters worse, these leaders don’t even try to hide their apparent contempt
for the natural world and all those who respect and consider themselves a part of it.
Through confusion, misinformation, and distraction, the legislature of the United States
is being quite successful at increasing the wealth of those who are already wealthy and
removing safeguard after safeguard against corporate irresponsibility.
For example, did you think that the Congress joined together last week to reform the IRS?
If you read about the passage of the "reform" bill with a 97-0 vote in the
Senate and the sweeping words of our leaders, Democrat and Republican, you might have
gotten a warm feeling in your belly and might have felt a little safer. Yet the articles
about the reform in most major newspapers mention nothing about an "11th hour"
addition to the bill that would extend sweeping benefits to corporate America and the
rich.
In fact, the reform measures spoken of with great enthusiasm would affect only a few
thousand Americans, said Robert McIntire of the Citizens for Tax Justice organization. The
bill was a collection of very clever distractions, playing on our fears and concerns about
governmental abuse, while the rich get richer and the corporations get more powerful.
The last minute additions allow multi-national corporations to pay no taxes if they can
shift their profits into foreign tax havens, which the bill makes it easier for them to
do. The additions also allow the wealthy to have an easier time qualifying for individual
retirement accounts. These additions could cost the government $40 billion in the long
run. This is all part of a movement by our conservative leaders to weaken government by
removing funding sources, such as taxes, for programs that most people other than the
wealthy depend upon. 
Not endangered, but just as important. ((c) 1998 Jackie Giuliano)
On May 6, 1998, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, in an equally misleading set
of statements, announced, proudly, that the bald eagle would be removed from the
endangered species list over the next two years because it has "recovered." He
announced that the designation of critical habitat would continue to be given low priority
and that getting an animal off the list would be given as high a priority as getting them
on the list. Don’t break open the champagne yet, though. We have to examine these
phenomena more closely.
Many analysts believe that this approach to managing the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is a
blatant effort to weaken the law, since the business operations of powerful corporations
are affected by an animal’s placement on the list. If you want to expand your
agribusiness operation, for example, and an animal that appears on the endangered species
list is in your way, you must suspend operations.
This can be costly for business. The government will often highlight the stories of the
occasional small farmer that has had to leave a field dormant because of the presence of
an endangered species, but the real opponents of the law are the large corporations.
Isn’t it so sad and obscene that the question even has to be asked about whether a
life is more important than property and profit? Isn’t our connection to the natural
world challenged enough and tenuous at best? Shouldn’t fostering a respect for all
life, whether or not we understand its place in our world, be good practice and given the
highest priority?
I challenge anyone to give a sound argument justifying an economic policy being worth the
chain reaction of repercussions that killing anything has.
Of course, what chance does an endangered animal have in a world where the U.S. Federal
Aviation Administration will not enact a safety measure unless the cost of the possible
wrongful death lawsuits from passenger deaths is less than the cost of implementing the
safety measure. They say that a human life is worth $3.4 million. 
(Photo J.A. Giuliano (c) 1998)
On June 30, 1994, the Bald eagle was downlisted from an endangered to a threatened
species. Widespread use of the pesticide DDT (banned since 1972 in the U.S., but still
manufactured here and shipped to other countries who don’t understand or care about
the danger!) reduced the eagles to less than 1,600 nesting individuals in the lower 48
states.
You see, the DDT caused the shells of their eggs to weaken, increasing infant mortality
dramatically. Their numbers had increased to 7,000 in 1994, resulting in the downgrading
of their status. The ESA was directly credited with this success. Today 5,000 nesting
pairs have been counted in the lower 48 states.
In a May 6, 1998 statement, Secretary Babbitt proudly said, "In the near future, many
species will be flying, splashing and leaping off the list. They made it. They are
graduating. They’re coming back to their native American soil, water and wind."
But what are they graduating to? Will they be embraced, respected, and most importantly,
LEFT ALONE? That is unlikely.
A few years ago, the cover story of "USA Today" gave a powerful example of what
fate awaits many animals if they are removed from the endangered species list. But think
about this whole situation for a minute. Why did they make it to the list in the first
place? Usually, it was because some societal pressure - like hunting, development, or
pesticide spraying - decimated their numbers. Will making it illegal, for a while, to harm
them remove the original pressure that brought them to the list in the first place? Not
necessarily.
In this "USA Today" story, South Carolina’s Walt Rhodes, supervisor of the
state's alligator recovery program, was proudly proclaiming that their alligator recovery
program was "one of the most successful wildlife recovery stories ever." But
that wasn’t the headline of the story. The headline was "S. CAROLINA LETS
HUNTERS GO FOR GATORS AGAIN: Any day catching alligator is better than a day at the
office." I must share with you some more of this article, because it makes my point
exactly.
"Armed with a pistol barrel attached to the end of an 8-foot wooden pole, alligator
hunter Bill Chaplin fires his ‘bang stick’ and dispatches a six-footer with a
single round of .44 magnum ammunition. ‘There,’ declares Chaplin with an air of
accomplishment. ‘You’re looking at the first alligator killed legally here in 31
years.’ The kill, one of about 200 alligators that will be harvested during South
Carolina’s first sanctioned hunt in three decades, represents not only another notch
on Chaplin’s figurative alligator belt, but another milestone in the recovery of a
species some people are surprised to learn is not extinct..."
"So successful is the alligator’s return that, beginning this week - in brackish
marshes and old rice plantations - South Carolina became the fourth state to reinstate
hunting, after Florida, Louisiana and Texas...The alligator also can be credited with
sustaining Bill Chaplin and [fellow hunter] Johnny Williamson, spiritually if not
financially. Chaplin and Williamson banter, as hunters always do, and here the talk is of
the grain market, shrimping, the time Chaplin went out on an [alligator] nuisance call in
his business suit. Together they hunt gators in the sun. ‘You can’t feed a
family on it,’ Williamson says, ‘but it sure is fun.’"
What more needs to be said? Removing an animal from the endangered species list because
its numbers have increased, even though the pressures that endangered it in the first
place are still there, is senseless. Sadly, the same fate awaits the bald eagle as met the
alligator. Bald eagles are often killed for fun and, sadly, for profit. The market for
animal parts results in the deaths of many animals, whether or not they are on the list.
An eagle can command $2,000 to $5,000 per bird when its parts are sold to collectors or
for ceremonial purposes. Sadly, indigenous peoples are often among the greatest offenders,
succumbing to a black market for wildlife parts.
Maybe we need an "Endangered Values List" where we put ethics like reverence for
life, the sacredness of the earth, the air, and the water, and the acknowledgement that we
are all part of the web of life. Then we could work to delist the endangered values,
restoring spiritual and psychic health to a people badly in need of healing.
Until then, we run the risk of committing our sins again and again in the name of
sustainable wildlife management. When will we get it straight? When will we stop
worshiping the dollar and begin to worship life again? The bald eagle may be back - but
for how long?
RESOURCES
1. Learn more about the IRS reform hoax, listen to the Pacifica Network News story at http://www.webactive.com/webactive/pacifica/pnn/pac980508.html#2
to learn another point of view.
2. View the Citizens for Tax Justice web site at http://www.ctj.org/ to learn how our government is slowly but surely
removing important programs and how tax reform is connected.
3. Learn about the degrading of the Endangered Species Act from the National Endangered
Species Act Reform Coalition at http://www.nesarc.org/congress.htm
4. Read the press release from May 6, 1998 detailing the new priorities of the ESA at
5. Find your Congressional representatives and e-mail them. If you know your Zip code, you
can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html and tell them your
feelings about the weakening of the ESA.
6. Email Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and let him know that you want the
Department of the Interior to start listening to the web of life and not just big
businesses who are inconvenienced by another living creature.
7. Visit the owlcam at http://members.aol.com/owlbox/nest98.htm
to see a family of owls living and raising their young. Updated daily.
8. Learn who is out there expressing their concerns at the Environmental Organization
Directory at http://www.webdirectory.com/
9. Changelinks is a publication that provides a calendar of activist events in the
Southern California. Visit them at http://www.labridge.com/change-links/ and find a similar calendar for
your home town.
10. Find many lesser known environmental links at http://www.webdirectory.com/
{Jackie Giuliano, soon to be Ph.D., can be found in Venice, looking up in the sky and
imagining a bald eagle flying - and seeing it shot down. He is a Professor of
Environmental Studies for Antioch University, Los Angeles, and the University of Phoenix
Southern California Campuses. He is also the Educational Outreach Manager for the Outer
Planets/Solar Probe Project, a NASA program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to send space
probes to Jupiter’s moon Europa, the planet Pluto, and the Sun. Please send your
thoughts, comments, and visions to him at jackie@deepteaching.com
and visit his web site at http://www.jps.net/jackieg}
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