Bald Eagle

Let’s start with an animal every American knows as it adorns the Great Seal of the United States and can be found on the back of gold coins, the silver dollar, the half dollar and the quarter. This is of course the majestic bald eagle. Although strangely, despite the name, the bald eagle isn’t actually bald.

It was chosen to be a representative symbol of our country on June 20, 1782 but it had seen a few changes before it was finalized. The reason the bald eagle was chosen was because it represents freedom. Living as he does on the tops of lofty mountains, amid the solitary grandeur of nature.

In the late 20th century it was on the brink of extirpation, when a species ceases to exist in a specific geographic location, though it still exists elsewhere in the contiguous United States. Their numbers have thankfully recovered and on July 12, 1995 it was removed from the list of endangered species and transferred to the threatened species list, a list it would also be removed from on June 28, 2007.