The bald eagle has entered the U.S. code after President Joe Biden signed a bill Tuesday making the predator the official national bird.
Congress passed the measure with unanimous support.
Although the bird of prey is the centerpiece of the Great Seal of the United States, it was never formally recognized as the country’s official bird. Some of the Founding Fathers – Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson – were tasked with creating a national seal, but simply could not come to an agreement.
In 1782, a version of the seal featuring a bald eagle was submitted by Secretary of the Continental Congress Charles Thomson and approved. Most Americans are familiar with the bald eagle carrying a shield decorated with a flag, an olive branch in one talon and arrows in the other.
Franklin historically opposed the decision, arguing in a letter to his daughter that the bald eagle was “a bird of bad moral character.”
A bald eagle in Montana.
Regardless, the US hasn’t had an official bird in the nearly 250 years since its founding.
Minnesota resident Preston Cook has long hoped that the Eagle would ascend to the U.S. Code, even writing a bill and sending it to lawmakers.
Cook described himself as having a lifelong obsession with the bald eagle, and took it upon himself to push for change when he discovered that no official American bird existed. He wrote a simple piece of legislation that would change the code and say, “The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is the national bird.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., then led a bipartisan group that brought it to the Senate in July. It passed unanimously before passing through the House of Representatives unopposed last week.
Cook told NBC News earlier this month that this is an overlooked piece of history that he felt compelled to solve.
“Nobody has to change anything; it’s just a correction. It’s just a correction to history to set things right and make things the way they should be,” Cook said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
