Fellow tweetsters,

For those of you who missed it, here's the complete text of the Wall Street
Journal article as it appeared on the front page of the Friday May 8
edition.

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To Its Detractors, The National Bird Is on a New List
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With Their Numbers Soaring, Bald Eagles Menace Pets;
Raising Hackles in Seattle
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By Jim Carlton
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal via Dow Jones

SEATTLE -- Bald eagles are no longer endangered. Now they're a pest.

Consider the latest squawk at the Woodland Park Zoo here.

Zoo keepers were startled when a gang of wild bald eagles showed up here and
started picking fights with the zoo's tame avians. Ernest Rose, Woodland
Park's
raptor specialist, says he was tending the owls, turkey vultures and the
zoo's
tame bald eagle, Chinook, when a wild eagle swooped down from a tree and
attacked them.

"I waved my arms and yelled," Mr. Rose recalls. But the wild bird attempted
a
second pass, leaving the zoo birds quivering in fear.

Eagle lovers exulted when Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced
Wednesday that about two dozen species, including the bald eagle, no longer
need Endangered Species Act protection. Mr. Babbitt, speaking in front of a
pair of nesting bald eagles, said that the number of nesting pairs has
soared to more
than 5,000 from just 500 three decades ago.

Indeed, eagles have rebounded so smartly that some communities are beginning
to look askance at them. Near Tampa, Fla., last year, developers had to
delay
plans for a new apartment development after an eagle began cruising the
neighborhood. Around Davenport, Iowa, motorists ogling newly arrived wild
eagles have caused traffic jams.

"Some people around here call them vultures," says Susan Johnston, the city
clerk in Haines, Alaska, where about 3,500 eagles congregate each fall to
snatch
spawning salmon from the nearby Chilkat River. Eagles have eaten fish from
fishermen's nets and even grabbed pets, Ms. Johnston says. Some time ago,
one
snatched a puppy playing with her neighbor's daughter.

"The little girl wasn't much bigger than the puppy," she says. "You have to
think about that."

Here in Washington, eagles have quadrupled in number to about 600 nesting
pairs in 15 years. Greater Seattle, which had just three eagle nests a
decade
ago, now has about 30. Suburbanites have watched in disbelief as roaming
eagles dive-bomb duck flocks and fly off with ducklings.

"People see them doing the things that eagles do, and sometimes they're
taken
aback by the gore of it," says Kelly McAllister, a biologist for the state's
Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Indeed bald eagles, a species Benjamin Franklin called "a bird of bad moral
character," have been showing their true colors as they proliferate in the
Northwest. (Franklin wanted the wild turkey to be our national bird, but the
bald eagle won.) Two years ago, eagles terrorized a colony of blue herons in
suburban Renton, Wash., dining on the graceful birds in raids that lasted
several weeks.

"Were the heron lovers upset? Well, yes," says Martin Muller, a biology
teacher and eagle buff. "But what can you do about it? After all, the eagles
have been endangered."

At the Woodland Park Zoo, a wild eagle showed up recently and perched
ominously atop a tree overlooking a net enclosure where the zoo's two tame
eagles reside. "One day, I watched him come off his perch and run back and
forth
along the enclosure, trying to stick his head under," says Tom Aversa,
another
zoo raptor keeper. "You could tell he was being aggressive."

Zoo officials say an attendant is now always on hand to protect the tame
birds; the zoo has applied for a federal permit to scare away wild eagles
with
bright lights. The zoo has also enlisted Chinook as an early-warning system.
The
four-year-old tame eagle caws loudly whenever an interloping eagle
approaches
his turf. The zoo says that ultimately, it will have to erect a net to
protect
its birds from marauding wild eagles.

Vincent Muehter, associate director of bird conservation for the National
Audubon Society, says one reason wild eagles may be hounding the Seattle zoo
this spring is that breeding pairs usually require up to 15 square miles for
hunting.

Mr. Muehter says bald eagles also like to feed in groups. "When you get a
big
bunch of eagles," he says, "they're always looking for sitting ducks."

Under the Endangered Species Act, harassing eagles remains punishable by a
fine of up to $10,000 and a year in jail. When developer Steve Cramer
discovered an eagle nest near his five-acre plot of new homes in Kirkland,
Wash., three years ago, he dutifully notified local officials. They ordered
Mr. Cramer to
immediately halt construction and put together an "eagle-management plan."
It
took 18 months and $150,000 in lost time, he says.

Mr. Cramer now uses the nest as a sales tool for the million-dollar homes in
his development and watches the eagles with a telescope. Nonetheless, he
says,
"Sometimes I wonder, `Why me?' "

On Mercer Island, another wealthy Seattle suburb, arborist Brian Gilles says
he now spends much of his time protecting eagles. Mr. Gilles recently had to
rush to a nesting site after worried residents summoned the arborist, and
then
police, to stop a contractor whose loud wood-chipper was disturbing a nest
of
fledgling eagles.

Mr. Gilles persuaded the contractor to shut down the chipper for three
weeks.
"I said that was a critical time, because the parents might be scared away
and
the eaglets would fly before they were ready," he recalls.

Mr. Gilles has also been summoned to stop residents from chopping down trees
containing eagle perches and has patiently heard out eagle lovers bemoaning
the
loss of a perching tree blown down in windstorms.

"There is nothing like seeing an eagle on a windy day make a two-point
landing
on top of a tree," marvels Sharon Werner, a flight attendant who lives on
Mercer
Island. "Being an urban dweller, it is a constant reminder that there are
wild,
beautiful things out there."

Copyright (c) 1998 Dow Jones and Company, Inc.

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I guess the reason this article leaves a nasty taste in my mouth is partly
due to my own naivet, I should have wondered why someone from the Wall
Street Journal would travel from San Francisco to Seattle just for a story
on urban bald eagles.

The fact that people I know, who devote their lives to protecting and
rehabilitating eagles, are quoted in an article under a header that starts
"To its detractors..." is a close second.

I spent more than three hours with Mr. Carlton, showing him his first
eagles' nest and in general giving him a private education in eagle biology.
Believe me, he was just as much in awe at the size of the nest, the birds'
majestic appearance, and the raw-ness of young in a nest surrounded by dead
fish and a mallard carcass, as any other person I've ever shared that with.

I believe that education is a major aspect of efforts to save habitat and
its inhabitants. I do hope that most people who attends slide lectures I
present on bald eagles, or attend a field trip, come away with more than
one out of context quotation; I'd quit doing the programs in a hurry.

Ye gads, I can just hear the questions at the next programs: "do eagles eat
small children? Well, I read in the Wall Street Journal that this is a
concern... " I sincerely hope that Don Baccus is right when he says most
people don't believe that kind of cr... It's just unfortunate it appeared in
print in a major newspaper.

I could rant and rave on about individual parts of the article, but I won't
bore you with that. For me it was the first time my words were taken out of
context and that I was quoted in an article so diametrically opposite to
what I had been led to believe it would be about. Freedom of the
press...101.

I'll spare you the trouble, Don; "Welcome to the real world Martin."

Martin Muller, Seattle
MartinMuller at email.msn.com