The Associated Press reported that U.S. President Joe Biden signed a bill on the 24th (local time) officially designating the bald eagle as the national bird of the United States.
The bald eagle appeared on the US President’s emblem in 1782 and has since been used as a symbol of the United States on dollar bills, military uniforms, and other places. After 248 years, the bald eagle was legally recognized as a ‘national bird’.
The person behind the passage of this bill is Preston Cook (78), an ‘eagle fanatic’ who has devoted his entire life to bald eagles. He wrote the bill himself and persuaded lawmakers, and this year the bill passed the Senate and House of Representatives unanimously. “This bill is simply a measure to correct a mistake in history that doesn’t require anyone to change anything,” Cook told NBC News.
The bald eagle, a native species of North America, appeared on the emblem of the United States adopted by the Continental Congress in 1782. Since then, it has been used as a symbol of the United States in many places, including on U.S. currency, military uniforms, and the presidential flag, but has never been officially recognized as the ‘national bird’.
![Bald eagle designated as U.S. national bird for the first time in 248 years… Behind him was ‘eagle fanatic’ Preston Cook.[사람, 세계]](https://dimg.donga.com/wps/NEWS/IMAGE/2024/12/25/130719900.1.jpg "Bald eagle designated as U.S. national bird for the first time in 248 years… Behind him was ‘eagle fanatic’ Preston Cook.[사람, 세계]")
To publish a book about his ‘eagle collection’ in 2010, Cook searched for official documentation that the bald eagle was the representative bird of the United States. The answer he found was “there is no basis.” I sent a letter to my state senator, but only received a reply that it was “presumed” to be the national bird. The United States officially recognized the rose as the national flower, the oak tree as the national tree, and the bison as the national mammal, but the bald eagle did not.
Cook, who had been silent for several years, began work on creating a national anthem in earnest on his birthday last year, vowing, “If I don’t change it now, it will never happen.” He wrote a bill to ‘designate the bald eagle as the national bird’ and persuaded lawmakers.
“It was a bit of a challenge at first because they didn’t trust me,” Cook told NPR. After a direct investigation in Congress, it was confirmed that the bald eagle was not the national bird, and the bill began to gain momentum. The bill passed the Senate unanimously in July this year and also passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support on the 16th.
Cook, a retired real estate investor, began collecting eagle-related items after being inspired by the line from the 1966 movie “A Thousand Clowns,” “The more eagles, the better.” Currently, his ‘eagle collection’ of about 40,000 pieces is currently donated to the ‘National Eagle Center’ in Minnesota.
In addition to its symbolism in the United States, the bald eagle is also considered an example of the importance of nature conservation. This is because the population increased thanks to strengthened protection at the federal level, including the ban on pesticides (1972), and the species was removed from the endangered species list in 2007. As of 2020, the number of bald eagles in the United States was approximately 316,000, a four-fold increase compared to 10 years ago.
The U.S. National Eagle Center said that the increase in the bald eagle’s population and its designation as a national bird “shows what we can do and what we are willing to do when we truly value and consider it important.”
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![Bald eagle designated as U.S. national bird for the first time in 248 years... Behind him was ‘eagle fanatic’ Preston Cook.[사람, 세계]](https://dimg.donga.com/a/180/101/95/2/wps/NEWS/IMAGE/2024/12/25/130719727.1.jpg)
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