Decades ago several bird species in the Great Lakes—including the iconic bald eagle—faced an uncertain future because toxic chemicals were threatening their populations. While several bans and policies have offered some protection, the same chemicals threatening these birds 60 years ago continue to accumulate in their bodies—and new chemical threats are adding to their toxic
More than 25 years ago, biologists in Arkansas began to report dozens of bald eagles paralyzed, convulsing, or dead. Their brains were pocked with lesions never seen before in eagles. Birds were dying at lakes and reservoirs throughout the southeast, and at every lake Susan Wilde, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Georgia, Athens