Bald Eagles Keep Dying And No One's Talking About It

[Cattledog]

Last edited Sat Mar 11, 2017, 06:12 PM - Edit history (1)

"The U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, has overturned a ban on the use of lead ammunition in wildlife refuges."

click on the link for pics.


When a bald eagle was brought to a wildlife rehabilitation center late last month, he was paralyzed and couldn't even hold his head up.
People had to carry the motionless bird. His head rested on his wing. Rescuers rushed to cleanse his blood of the poison that was slowly strangling the life out of him.

This happens to bald eagles all the time. And Lynn Tompkins, executive director of Blue Mountain Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center in Oregon, has been trying to save them for 30 years.
"His head was upside down when we got him," Tompkins told The Dodo. "Lead affects the nerves, so that's your brain, your use of muscles, all parts of the body. The birds often cannot stand … They usually have difficulty breathing. They cannot even open their beaks."

The lead gets into the bodies of bald eagles — as well as owls and other kinds of raptors — after they've eaten dead animals shot by hunters who use lead bullets. "Raptors are quite willing to be scavengers, so they scavenge," she said. "They eat things that have been shot. Lead ammunition is the biggest source."

https://www.thedodo.com/bald-eagle-ammunition-refuges-2306402071.html

[defacto7]

1. There's a terrible irony in this...

nt

[Ilsa]

4. I was thinking something similar. Like it's a bad omen. NT

[KT2000]

2. they finally banned hunting

in grounds next to a national wildlife refuge. So many bullets on the ground contaminated the soil and the ponds that formed in the winter and spring. Yes - hunter do miss. It was really nothing more than target practice there. I would drive by and see top of the line pickup trucks, men wearing thousands of dollars worth of clothes and gear. They were there to shoot pheasants that had been raised to be released for the hunters and then shot.
When they were released into the range, they were terrified with no idea where they were or how to survive.
The "hunters" fought the closing of the range but lost.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

3. Bald Eagles are doing great in Maine.

I see some fly around the river in front of my house every so often. They have a nest on big pine tree that is on an island in the middle of the river. I live in the 2nd largest city in the state, which isn't all that big, but I'm not in a rural area.