The American bald eagle--our nation's national bird and symbol--is doing well. Populations have been expanding for years, and are now approaching the levels estimated for the founding era.
Many policymakers, pundits and professional environmentalists want to credit the Endangered Species Act for the success of eagle recovery efforts. But try as they might, it is hard to find much evidence that the ESA (as opposed to other conservation laws and recovery efforts) did much good, for reasons I explain in the latest issue of PERC Reports, published by the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, MT.
