Everyone’s asking the same question after the bald eagle is declared America’s national bird

The bald eagle has been a symbol of power and strength in the US for more than 240 years, but was only recently declared the national bird.

President Joe Biden signed a bill on Christmas Eve designating the predator as America’s symbol after it first appeared on a Massachusetts copper penny coined in 1776.

However, the announcement was met with confusion, as many Americans believed that the bald eagle has always been the national bird.

“Am I the only one who thought the bald eagle was already the national bird,” someone asked on X. “I swear I learned this in grade school.”

The skepticism has also led many people to believe that the Mandela Effect, a phenomenon in which a large group of people share a false memory of a specific event, is happening across the country.

The bald eagle has only been considered a national emblem of the US since 1782 and was used on The Great Seal.

The seal features an eagle, an olive branch, arrows, a flag-like shield, the motto ‘E Pluribus Unum’ and a constellation.

Congress that same year designated the bald eagle a national emblem, and its image appears in numerous places, ranging from documents and the presidential flag to military insignia and U.S. currency.

Biden’s statement has sparked hundreds of comments on social media from Americans all saying the same thing.

“You want to tell me this hasn’t been the case this whole time,” one user shared on Instagram.

While one X user posted: ‘I went to school in the 70s. The bald eagle has always been our national bird. Now they say that wasn’t the case. I don’t feel like it.’

One user joked on Instagram, saying they believed the bald eagle was always the national bird and that the Christmas Eve announcement was just a rebranding.

Anyway, it only became official last week.

Benjamin Franklin considered it “a bird of bad moral character” when it debuted on The Great Seal.

Centuries later, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Brad Finstad, both of Minnesota, said the bald eagle “is a historic symbol of the United States that represents independence, strength and freedom.”

The majestic creature is known for its white head, yellow beak, brown body and large wingspan, and is unique in North America.

However, the announcement was met with confusion, as many Americans believed that the bald eagle has always been the national bird

It appears on postage stamps, on the $1 bill and is displayed above federal departments and agencies in the US.

The majestic creature was threatened with extinction in the second half of the 20th century.

Recently, the population has been recovering thanks to one of the most successful conservation efforts in history.

Data collected in New Jersey from 2023 showed the state’s eagle population soaring to new heights — with nearly 250 active nests identified last year.

This is more than double the number counted a decade earlier – in stark contrast to 1970, when the state had just one pair of breeding eagles.

There were fewer than 1,000 breeding pairs in the US in the 1970s, largely due to the prevalence of a toxic pesticide, DDT, which thinned their eggshells and reduced the chance of hatching.

After a federal ban on DDT was imposed in 1972, the eagle population gradually revived.

And in 2007, the government finally succeeded in removing the bald eagle from the endangered species list.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s most recent national census, there are an estimated 316,700 individual bald eagles, including 71,400 breeding pairs.