Return to People behind the Eagles Profile of Michael Amaral Seeing a bald eagle or peregrine falcon in the wild is a rarity for most people, but seeing the birds up close is one of the perks of Michael Amaral's job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Rhode Island native is a senior endangered species specialist for USFWS and a key team member in the Vermont Bald Eagle Restoration Initiative. His job takes him from cliff-top peregrine falcon eyries to the upper reaches of pine trees where bald eagles have nested. "Each time is like the first time," Amaral says. "It's a relief - if I'm in the nest it means I haven't fallen and broken my neck on the way up. It's also exhilarating and great to see one or two healthy-looking chicks staring back at me. "Those days make up for a lot of days bogged down with paperwork," he said. Amaral works out of the USFWS's New England Field Office in Concord, N.H., but in nearly three decades with the service, he's helped protect a wide variety of birds and animals in southern California, Alaska, and New England. Amaral is involved in all aspects of implementing the Federal Endangered Species Act, including listing, protection and recovery of threatened and endangered species. He has published articles in scientific journals on a range of wildlife species, including Aleutian Canada goose, black-tailed deer, Karner blue butterfly, peregrine falcon and the American burying beetle. For this project, Amaral is the federal point of contact, finding and coordinating donor sources of eaglets, and coordinating their transportation to Vermont. He holds a master station bird banding permit, and ensures that eagles released in Vermont are individually marked with color leg bands to facilitate their identification in the wild. Amaral's interest in wildlife bloomed at a young age, as his family's five-acre vegetable farm and orchard abutted a salt marsh that teemed with wildlife. "I'd go walking through the marsh and see hundreds of black ducks take flight, and great blue herons stabbing at fiddler crabs," Amaral said. "My uncle next door sold and fixed televisions, and I would get the empty TV boxes and turn them into backyard bird blinds, where I could sit and watch the birds at our feeder from really close range." Amaral's graduate study work on seabirds in Alaska was funded by the USFWS, and contacts there eventually lead to a full-time job. In an era where many people change careers six or seven times, Amaral found his vocation early. "I might be able to transfer into a higher-paying management position, but it would take me away from the hands-on work with wildlife and conservation partners that I find most rewarding," he says. "I really enjoy interacting with state and private conservation partners united behind a common objective." That thought describes the Vermont Bald Eagle Restoration Initiative to the letter. So how does it feel to play a role in restoring the bald eagle to its rightful place in Vermont? "Humans were responsible for bringing the bald eagle to the brink of extinction, and it's very satisfying to play a part in bringing it back to places like Lake Champlain," Amaral says. "I've really enjoyed my involvement with the partnership - everyone works together, sharing the work and the credit very well, and the volunteers are what impress me the most. People who care and are willing to give time to programs like this make a huge difference." Amaral and his wife, a biological and physical science teacher, have two children who also enjoy the great outdoors. Children, he says, are our most ardent conservationists. "They seem to value our work more than any other segment of society," Amaral says. "You never hear a third-grader ask, 'Why should we save that bird or that butterfly?' Kids accept that all living things have intrinsic value and a right to live. They expect us to make room for them, to share the planet with them." People, especially children, seem to have a special affinity toward birds, birds of prey in particular. "What isn't there to like?" Amaral asks. "Birds are colorful, variable, great singers, and are amusing to watch. People understand that unlike seed eaters, birds of prey must put their lives on the line every day in search for food. They have to be faster, more cunning, more daring, and more acute than their prey. They have to be on top of their game every day or they won't survive." Terms of Use - Copyright 2007 Central Vermont Public Service Copyright photos CVPS, Floyd Scholz U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife Web related issues || Site developed by Interactive Media Advertising