I always here the old stories of “back in my day we use to set traps for hawks” or shoot the hawks. Sitting in my tree stand made me wonder what caused them to be protected. Was it low populations or what?

Bird nerds.

They ate quail in the South. Some traps were placed on fence posts I think.

If the question was "why were they protected?" They were protected as part of the worldwide protection of predators and specifically avian predators. It was part of the Preservation movement often called and misnamed as the "environmental movement" that started in the 1960's. Sportsmen are the true environmentalist, not the tree huggers & "Bambi lovers". Sportsmen take care of the land, the water and animals not trying to move it back to what it was or might have been before pre-European times in the US.

It had absolutely NOTHING to do with low hawk, owl or eagle populations. Most were at extremely high levels. The spotted owl was a player in this movement to stop timber harvest. The bird themselves were only actually endangered AFTER they shut down "old growth" timber harvest on the Northwest coast. The reason the spotted owls now have a reduced population is because although they nested in mature timber they needed openings for catching their prey. (The openings they needed were made by regular timber harvest in this area.) There is now another species of owl that has moved into these over mature forests of the Northwest and pushing the spotted owl out.
There is also foreign governmental "environmental agreements" that protect birds that may be related to or look similar to a "threatened or endangered species". The common US magpie is an example of this. It has a relative in Mexico that is threatened so the common magpie in the US is protected even though their are millions of them destroying song birds.

The Cities permits required on bobcats and Canadian lynx is another example of over regulation by foreign nations on mammal predators.

Pete

This is the answer I was looking for. Is there a time limit on this. That it could possible change?

Birds of prey were in deep trouble back when DDT was being used. It caused the thinning of the birds eggshells and populations of many of them plummeted. Rachel Carson highlighted the dangers of DDT in her 1962 book Silent Spring.
The pesticide posed many other dangers to human health too.

Since it use was banned numbers have rebounded.
I think we are getting to a point where we may start hearing calls for control of some birds of prey.

I'm not so sure Katcatcher is entirely correct, but he is certainly not entirely wrong. My recollection is that certain raptor populations were in serious decline due to the use of DDT. DDT was eventually banned in the US for this and other reasons. However, the affected raptor populations, including eagles, recovered and have been recovered for decades now, so it would appear that the continued protection of all raptor species is purely a political issue.

Katcatcher, do you remember how they preached that the spotted owl ONLY nested in old growth trees. I remember hearing that over and over during their push against timber companies. I also remember during that time photos of one nesting inside a broken Kmart sign. Fake news was hard at work then too.

DDT was banned solely on one study by one nut job lady professor. They took that study and jammed it into everyone’s head over the last 40 years, and millions of people around the world have died from malaria since. It was the cheapest weapon we had against mosquitos.

Is it better to be effected by, or die of, the breast & other cancers
male infertility
miscarriages & low birth weight
developmental delay
nervous system & liver damage

DDT was NOT banned solely for it's effects upon birds, despite what groups like The Competitive Enterprise Institute would love for us to believe.

It's not that it was cheapest, it was the most effective. The issue with DDT was overuse. DDT is the single most effective control of mosquitoes and the diseases they spread. It should be available for specific uses and regulated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito-borne_disease
Mosquito-borne diseases or mosquito-borne illnesses are diseases caused by bacteria, viruses or parasites transmitted by mosquitoes. They can transmit disease without being affected themselves. Nearly 700 million people get a mosquito-borne illness each year resulting in over one million deaths.[1]

Diseases transmitted by mosquitoes include malaria, dengue, West Nile virus, chikungunya, yellow fever,[1] filariasis, tularemia, dirofilariasis, Japanese encephalitis, Saint Louis encephalitis, Western equine encephalitis, Eastern equine encephalitis,[2] Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Ross River fever, Barmah Forest fever, La Crosse encephalitis, and Zika fever,[2] as well as newly detected Keystone virus and Rift Valley fever.

DDT definitely had a negative effect on many things and maybe it should have been regulated rather than banned. But to me that is getting away from my main point which is; If you think the bald eagle was really threatened or endangered you have been sadly mislead. There were fewer eagles in some parts of the country but they were Never actually threatened or endangered of ever becoming non-existent which is what extinction is. That simply put, bald eagles were going to go extinct was a lie. Very similar to the lie that has been spread that Canadian grey wolves were ever endangered of becoming extinct.

But if you want to discuss an actual wolf subspecies that has been totally destroyed you may want to do a little research on the smaller (70 to 80 pound max) Idaho/Montana Timber wolf of the Inland Pacific Northwest. It was already threatened (very low in numbers) when the USFWS (because of political pressure brought by the "Preservationist groups), brought in and released the much larger (120 pound+) grey wolf from Canada into the Timber wolfs' habitat in Idaho and Montana n the early 1990's. Since then the Canadian wolves have destroyed /killed all the smaller Idaho/Montana timber wolves that were here. According to the best research available the Idaho/Montana timber wolves are now totally Extinct. Although there are far too many of the invasive species, the Canadian wolves, here now but the original species the Idaho/Montana Timber wolf that had always been here are now totally ALL GONE. The grey wolf according to DNA confirmation never existed here.

The ban rather than regulating of another poison 1080 was a prime reason for the major decrease in mule deer herds across the vast majority of the western States because its ban lead to the increased predator population we now have. Over harvest and habitat played a smaller part but the largest Continuing factor was increased predator numbers. [That has also been shone in recent unbiased scientific studies where trappers removed the predators the prey species flourished. Go figure that one out. LOL) [Hunting of prey species can generally keep the population in check to keep the habitat from being destroyed. Just another point that is often lost in reports and studies.]

If you really want to be informed it is up to each person to do his own do the research and determine for yourself the real facts, not just quote something that you read. Like someone mentioned there are many false reports and rumors so don't forget to research who done the research. If they had a bias or agenda going in the results of the study are also likely going to reflect that.
I spent more than 30 years doing extensive research on fish and wildlife primarily that applied here in the northwest. I don't do much of it any more. (It was pretty much a time waster because the people in charge of making changes didn't want the facts their minds were already made up or they had other agendas.) I didn't have anywhere near all the answers but if what I was seeing in the woods didn't match up to what I was reading in reports I wanted to know why. This is what I found "Although (math) figures don't lie it doesn't mean that liars don't figure." I have often said that of biological reports that don't accurately reflect what I saw going on around me in the woods.
Pete

Birds of pray are the best indicator of the environment because they live off everything that make ups our environment on a simple scale, for example A merlin eat small birds, the small birds eat bug the bug live of plants, grasses etc. The merlin can be living in Canada today and in a few day be in Southern Mexico. This is just a simple example.

Eagles and Peregrine Falcon were the first to show the signs of the effect of DDT, one they started checking the effect of DDT in the soil it was found to not be degrading and was going in the food chain.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 it protect most birds but there are a few exceptions.

WNV took a real toll on the raptors in my area about 20 years ago and they still have not recovered completely.

I am sure there are better pesticides better than DDT, there are many under develop country do not have the means to use the pesticides.

There is a post on the forum that ask if we are see a decline in the song birds, most people said yes. WHY
JMO

35 years ago seeing an Eagle was a rarity, today it is common place. I think most people do not look at the big picture. Do not judge by what you see just in your back yard, look at you State as a hole. Eagle are common all over Michigan, not just my area. JMO

for the catholic birds of pray
worm of god take away the sins of the world , have mercy on us

Worm of god take away the sins of the world , have mercy on us

Worm of god take away the sins of the world , grant us peace

Good one greencountypete

Getting there, I just disagree with the bias studies done on DDT, and think many humans have paid with their lives. It’s the same thing over and over. Climate change, lead shot, etc... I’ve been told salt and eggs are going to kill me and then they are good for me to many times in my life! You make good points, and I’ll leave it at that.

Well this seems more complicated than one would think I appreciate all
The info

All of the information which you cite is pure, non-scientific conjecture.
Rachel Carson had no scientific background, conducted no research, and relied solely on the false logic of 'cum hoc ergo propter hoc', Latin for, "with this, therefore because of this", when in fact, correlation does not imply causation.
The correlation of the use of the use of DDT and injury to a given species would need to be proven scientifically. The only thing ever proven of DDT is that it is known to accumulate in the tissue of species which are at the top of the food chain. Every other assertion made has been purely conjecture.
BTW, millions of people worldwide are now dead from disease transmitted by insects which were easily and cost effectively controlled by DDT.
How many bird species went extinct from the many decades of DDT usage?
Given the propensity for DDT accumulation in the tissue of species at the top of the food chain, should we be using DDT? Maybe not the best insecticide to choose from, unless EEE starts killing thousands of people. When that happens, they can spray DDT on my yard first.

Possibly like some on here were around and thinking about this when "Silent Spring" was first written. I was in high school when it was written. Some in the biology class questioned the reasonableness of the hypothesis that raptors would be the first to have effects from the chemicals in DDT. The thought was that since DDT effected insects would it not be more likely that the first birds to be effected by the chemical would be the first ones to consume large quantities of the poison first and directly. So with that thought in mind it seemed far more likely that the smaller birds that consumed thousands of insects that had directly been effected more quickly by DDT and that their egg shells would be the first to show thinning. But that was not the case because the swallows, thrushes and the bats that consumed them were seeing no negative effects. It is up to you to determine what is true and logical.
The statement was made "Since it use was banned numbers have rebounded."
Was it the ban of DDT, was it because the ban of 1080, was it the making it illegal for humans to shoot or trap them, was it the lessening of radioactivity, solar flares, changing climate, increased opportunity for prey from modern farming practices, or a thousand other things that changed in the next 30 to 50 years. It is pure speculation that it was the ban of DDT that increased the birds of prey to their current levels.

Please do not get me wrong. Humans ARE RUINING THE EARTH but I can assure you that it will take a higher power to fix it. We should do all we can to not continue to ruin it.

The question was were birds or prey in low numbers when the ban to hunt them was passed and the simple and straight forward answer is "NO, they were not."
The fact that there are far more now than there were then does Not mean they were out of their natural range of variability in the 1960's. Studies indicate that raptors in the 1960's were more numerous than they were in the 1920's and 30's.

Speaking of bird numbers let us consider some birds that are hunted that we have a more statistics on.
Across the entire US there far fewer pheasants than there were in the 60'. (That is a proven by biological facts from hunter harvest reports and State game bird number estimates.)So that poses the question what is for that? Is it because hunters kill too many now. Current bag limits and hunting seasons have pretty much eliminated over harvest. Hunters are annually killing far fewer of these birds than they did in the 50's & 60's. Are they starving to death because of changes in farming practices. That might be true in some areas but the farmers here in wheat country they were planting and harvesting from fence line to fence line from the mid 40's, which included the 50's and 60's which was the highest population of pheasant than at any time in US history. No studies I have read indicate that it is because they were poisoned. Is it because of weather conditions? The weather also doesn't seem to have changed that much in most years.across the entire country until much more recent years. So was it because there are far more predators now? Several studies sure seem to indicate that but I will let each of you determine the answer to that.

I legally hunt and trap specific predators. Why? I can assure you it is not for the profit in selling their meat or pelts. It is to try to keep the balance of their prey species, that I want to hunt, high enough so I, my friends and family can harvest some of them. If the predators kill too many I won't have enough to hunt.
Like most things with me it is pretty simple!
Pete