Where Do Eagles Live?

Video Transcript

"If you live in the United States, you may recognize this bird as your national bird, it's the bald eagle, the symbol of the United States of America. I'm Janice Creneti, I've been teaching environmental and animal science for about twenty years. And I'm here to answer the question, where do eagles live? Well certainly in the United States of America this is the eagle that we're most familiar with. However eagles are found almost all over the world, pretty much every place except Antarctica. They're found in Africa, they're found in Canada, they're found in Mexico, and certainly they're found in the United States. Bald eagles tend to be found predominantly in our country in the northwest. There's a huge population in Alaska, mostly due to a lot of the salmon that they can feed on when the salmon are spawning. We also have a number of bald eagles in Florida where I live. And some up along the eastern coast especially in the Chesapeake Bay area. See bald eagles feed predominantly on fish, so you're usually going to find them in habitats where there is ponds that they can fish out of, ponds, lakes, streams and they'll even fish out of small oceans as well. If you take a look at the bird, you can see one of the things that enables them to catch this fish. That's their big hooked talon. Bald eagles are what we call birds of prey, that means that they actually prey on other animals. And this large hook is used for helping them to rip the fish once they're able to catch it. Well how do they get it out of the water? Well for that they need their talons. There are large claws on the bottom of their feet. They're actually able to to fly low over the surface of the water, reach in, grab that fish, and fly it off to their nest. Now bald eagles like to nest very, very high up. So you tend to see them in mountainous regions or in areas where there's dead trees that they can actually nest in like what we have here in Florida. And again, they need to be close to water so that they can find their food. They're beautiful and powerful animals, almost brought to the brink of extinction because of the use of pesticides, they're now making a healthy comeback. I'm Janice Creneti, and this is where do eagles live."