Bald Eagle talons are huge! But the best thing might be that they're no longer an endangered species

The bald eagle is the national bird of the United States, but for a long time we were in serious danger of wiping them out completely. As of 2007, they are now in the category "of least concern", but you won't believe just how close we came to never seeing another one.

In 1963, there were a low of only 413 breeding pairs of bald eagles—and even then, there was no guarantee that those breeding pairs would successfully have offspring. The problem lied in the pesticide DDT.

DDT was used in an incredibly widespread way following WWII. However, an unexpected side effect of the use of DDT was that it thinned the shells of birds of all kinds, eagles especially. So, when nesting mothers would sit on the their eggs, they would crush them—completely decimating the population.

Thankfully, the government banned the use of DDT in 1972, and by 2007, the population of eagles grew to almost 50,000 birds!

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