The bald eagle all but vanished from New York in the 1970s.
The pesticide DDT, ingested by eagles from fish snatched from the state’s lakes and rivers, thinned the shells of their eggs, causing them to soften before they could hatch.
In 1970, there was just one eagle nest in New York, at Hemlock Lake south of Rochester. It wasn’t producing any young. Their eggs were too damaged by DDT.