Bald Eagle to Be Named National Bird; So What?

Lawmakers have passed a bill to formally designate the bald eagle as the national bird of the United States. When President Biden signs off on the bill – which breezed through the Senate and House – it will be official.

Official, and mostly pointless. The new law will do nothing to extend further protections to the noble bird or its habitat, but that's okay because the raptors are well covered by the Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940. Most Americans may have thought the official designation had already been the law of the land.

Even the National Eagle Center in Minnesota was surprised to hear it was not. “I’ve been talking in classes all of these years, telling [people] it’s our nation’s symbol and our national bird,” the center’s education director Scott Mehus tells NBC News. “I’ve been wrong all these years and so has everybody else in the country.”

That’s about to change, and no one is happier about it than Preston Cook, a devoted collector of bald eagle memorabilia. Cook was doing research for his book, “American Eagle: A Visual History of Our National Emblem,” when he discovered that his favorite bird had never been officially designated.

Cook became the bald eagle’s chief advocate on Capitol Hill, going so far as to write the bill that unanimously passed in the Senate in July. He’s pleased about the bipartisan support, but even he realizes that official recognition is, perhaps appropriately, entirely symbolic. “This is one of those few laws that’s going to make no difference,” Cook tells NBC.

The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) can be found throughout North America. The US has designated the oak as the national tree, the rose as the national flower, and the bison as the national mammal. Soon the noble eagle will join that lineup, officially.

See Cook’s impressive collection here. 

Photo credit: National Eagle Center