An occupied eagle's nest in plain view of the road between the west entrance and Madison Junction has attracted a lot of attention from visitors to the park. The Park Service has designated the area a bald eagle management area and placed certain traffic restrictions on the area. For the safety of the eagles and other park visitors stopping or leaving your car is prohibited in the area around the nest (I can attest to the need for the latter prohibition, during my most recent visit pedestrians standing along a blind curve nearly caused an accident).
The bald eagle is probably best know as the national bird of the United States. It was on the verge of extinction throughout much of its range (excluding Alaska and parts of Canada) largely due to the effects of the pesticide
DDT. After DDT was
banned in the U.S. in the early 70's numbers of eagles and other affected species have risen steadily. The bald eagle was taken off the endangered species list in 1995 and has been removed from the threatened list in 2007. Although eagle populations in the lower 48 states have again reached healthy numbers it is still protected as our national symbol by
federal law and
international treaty. Within Yellowstone National Park visitors must maintain a distance of 25 yards from all wildlife (100 yards from bears and wolves).
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Roadside eagle's nest
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