Classification of Bald Eagles:
Kingdom Animalia (the animals)
Phylum Chordata
Subphylum Vertebrata (animals with backbones)
Class Aves (Birds)
Order Falconiformes (hawks: falcons, accipiters, buteos, kites and eagles)
Family Accipitridae
Genus Haliaeetus (sea eagles)
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Species leucocephalus (meaning "white head" in Greek)
In the book The Bald Eagle, Haunts and Habits of a Wilderness Monarch, co-author Jon Gerrard talks about Eagles being around when the Europeans first arrived in North America. Though that number may never be known with certainty, he goes on to say that they nested on both coasts and along every major river and large lake in the interior from Florida to Baja California in the South and from Labrador to Alaska in the North. Needless to say there were many. An interesting notation found on page 3 is as follows:
"On Manhattan Island, New York, in the mid-1800's the Bald Eagle was extremely abundant on the floating ice of the Hudson River and sometimes brought its captive fish to the trees in the park, there to eat them or as often to quarrel about them with its fellow. At about the same time along the Mississippi River, near Keokuk, Iowa, the air was "simply alive" with eagles feeding on offal discarded by the pork houses. We suspect there were between a quarter million and a half a million Bald Eagles on the continent when Europeans first arrived."