The United States Postal Service has unveiled a new series of stamps featuring the bald eagle to commemorate the nation's 250th anniversary. The stamps were launched on Thursday at the National Eagle Centre in Wabasha, Minnesota, and are now available for purchase nationwide.
The collection depicts the bald eagle across five distinct life stages, from a fluffy hatchling to the iconic white-headed adult. Steve Kochersperger, a historian with the Postal Service, said the imagery encourages reflection on the country's own development: 'At one time, we were just fuzzy little hatchlings, too.'
The bald eagle has been a national emblem since the Great Seal was adopted in 1782, though it was only formally designated the national bird in 2024. The bird symbolises strength, freedom and independence, according to Kochersperger, who dismissed as a myth the story that Benjamin Franklin preferred the wild turkey.
The stamps also highlight a conservation success story. The bald eagle population declined sharply in the 1960s due to DDT poisoning, but a 1972 ban on the pesticide and its listing as an endangered species in 1978 helped reverse the trend. The bird was removed from the endangered list in 2007, and there are now over 300,000 eagles in the continental US.
Artist David Sibley, who created the digital illustrations, spent nearly a year on the project. He hopes the stamps will encourage people to think about the natural world: 'Seeing a bald eagle on the stamp as a bird, living its life from nestling to adult, will hopefully make people think about how important things like eagles are, not as a symbol but as part of the ecosystem around us.'
