Jaxon Meeks
In promoting his new book, “The Bald Eagle: The History of a Symbol and Species,” Pulitzer Prize winner Jack Davis spoke about the Bald Eagles’ journey from almost extinct to a thriving species.
Davis spoke at the University of Georgia’s Jackson Street Building on Thursday as a part of UGA’s first Humanities Festival. Davis, who spent four years writing his book, said that his environmental book focuses on a conservation success story.
“… environmental writers tend to focus on the doom and the gloom, and I wanted to write a book that would be an alternative to that and actually offer readers something positive and uplifting,” Davis said.
Nicholas Allen, director of the Wilson Center, said that Davis wrote a book of general interest that people in Athens would love to learn about.
“So I suppose a lot of these books, and it’s a great thing about them, and like a broad stroke, and a word or a passage and it catches your imagination and different people will be getting interested in differently and that’s the kind of the gift of writing like that,” Allen said.
Davis said one reason the Bald Eagle population was nearly driven to extinction was due to misconceptions. One misconception was that Bald Eagles would steal babies. This myth, Davis said, was developed sometime in the 19th century and continued well into the 20th century. Another myth was about how a Bald Eagle carried a sheep for five miles. These stories gave Bald Eagles a negative light, and people sought to kill them.
“They killed hundreds and thousands of them in the 19th century. There was no law against it,” Davis said.
In 1963, the Bald eagle population totaled fewer than 500. However, Davis said that conservation efforts in the 20th century brought the population up to well over 300,000. He said efforts such as the Bald Eagle Conservation Act, multiple raptor conservation centers and banning the pesticide DDT all factored into restoring the population.
Davis said that the Bald Eagle population today is estimated at 500,000, which is around the same number as when Europeans first arrived in North America. He said that this was a huge success story.
Davis’ lecture was part of UGAs’ first Humanities Festival which was organized by the UGA Humanities Council. According to the website, the festival hosts a series of public events that showcase a diversity of research and practice in the humanities.
Why I Wrote the Story:
During this event coverage, I learned how to produce B-roll footage and develop a topic to write about the event on the spot. Furthermore, I also learned how to develop questions and ask sources for further information on the spot.