Here, sitting on Highland Park's WCTC radio tower in The Meadows, is what could have been an extinct bird, a peregrine falcon. For years, farmers and golf course managers and everybody had put so much DDT into the environment that it got into the food that the eagles and falcons and hawks were eating. It might not kill them outright, but it made their eggshells fragile, and when the adult sat on the egg to incubate it, the shell broke. Bye bye baby birds. The ban on DDT came just in time, but still left New Jersey without its peregrine falcons and bald eagles. Reintroduction programs brought them back. This is the peregrine falcon; a bald eagle has been visiting too, but we haven't a photo. Yet.
Photo: Gabi Grunstein 9/7/2006.
