Dec. 24 (UPI) — The bald eagle has been lauded as a symbol of the United States, but it wasn’t officially the national bird until Tuesday.
President Joe Biden on Christmas Eve signed into law Senate Bill 4610, which amends title 36 of the U.S. Code to officially designate the bald eagle as the national bird of the United States.
Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., sponsored the legislation that described the bald eagle as the “historical symbol of the United States representing independence, strength and freedom.”
The measure says the bald eagle is unique to North America, was adopted as the coat of arms for the United States in 1782 and remains and “leading insignia for all branches” of the U.S. military.
The bald eagle is an integral part of the spiritual lives and belief systems of most aboriginal and tribal people in the United States and is the leading image on thousands of federal entities, including the offices of the president, vice president, Senate and House of Representatives, Klobuchar’s bill says.
Klobuchar introduced the bill after a constituent brought attention to the unofficial designation of the bald eagle as the United States’ national bird.
Representative Brad Finstad, R-Minn., introduced a companion measure in the House of Representatives.
Preston Cook, 78, began collecting items depicting eagles in the 1960s and has more than 40,000 eagle items.
“If it had an eagle on it, I’d buy it,” Cook told NBC News. “I may have gotten a little carried away in my collecting here, but I’ve loved the whole process.”
Cook is a resident of Wabasha, Minn., which is located along the Mississippi River and is home to the National Eagle Center.
Cook was researching a book about bald eagles in 2010 when he discovered it never officially became the national bird.
He lobbied lawmakers for years to officially designate the bald eagle the national bird.
His efforts finally succeeded when Biden signed the Senate bill into law.
While the bald eagle has been an iconic representation of the United States for more than two centuries, national founding-father Benjamin Franklin preferred another bird.
Franklin considered the bald eagle to be a “bird of bad moral character” that was “too lazy for fish for himself.”
Franklin viewed the wild turkey more favorably, but did not propose it be made the national bird, as falsely claimed by many.
