Wildlife Center: 2 Va. eagles sickened by lead

Posted to: News Virginia
Login or register to post comments

The Associated Press
© January 14, 2012

WAYNESBORO

The Wildlife Center of Virginia says it has treated two bald eagles in recent weeks suffering from lead poisoning.

The nonprofit center in Waynesboro says the birds were probably sickened by lead bullet fragments left in discarded entrails of deer and other animals.

The center's president, Ed Clark, tells the Daily Press of Newport News (http://bit.ly/y1POg7 ) that the lead poisoning cases coincide with the state's deer hunting season.

Besides the eagles, other birds suffering from lead poisoning include a red-tailed hawk and a black vulture.

Scientists say lead is highly toxic to birds, especially bald eagles.

One hunting group said it doubts an eagle would descend upon carrion before a vulture.

The Wildlife Center treats injured animals found in the wild and nurses them back to health.

COMMENTS ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here; comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its websites. Users must follow agreed-upon rules: Be civil, be clean, be on topic; don't attack private individuals, other users or classes of people. Read the full rules here.
- Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the report violation link below it.

Sounds like the "lead in donated meat" hoopla.

Submitted by SamD on Sat, 01/14/2012 at 3:51 pm.

This almost reminds me of the "lead in meat donated by hunters" stories that the media tried to run a few years ago.

Pilot's new "cause"?

Submitted by SamD on Sat, 01/14/2012 at 3:45 pm.

Since this is the Pilot's second article about lead poisoning I have to wonder if this is their new cause.

California passed lead restrictions for hunting ammunition a few years ago but the state nor the universities involved have yet to release their "data" used to write this law.

Perhaps because it is news, and it is informing its readers

Submitted by hondamom on Sun, 01/15/2012 at 9:42 am.

The issue of lead poisoning in eagles is timely and legitimate for the news media to cover, and it has no political agenda unless people choose to take it into that arena. The hunting season and shortly thereafter is the time we see the most eagles dying of lead ingestion. Ed Clark, as both an experienced hunter and founder of the Wildlife Center of Virgina, has written a position paper on this subject which does NOT call for politics or over-regulation. It can be accessed through www.wildlifecenter.org and then clicking on "lead toxicity". Hopefully this approach will encourage awareness of the facts and discourage fanatical extremes on both sides.

Bullet fragments in gut piles?

Submitted by Wm D Tabor DDS on Sat, 01/14/2012 at 3:32 pm.

that is highly unlikely. There just aren't that many fragments to be had that way. The Eagles would have to be getting every possible one.

If the eagles indeed were sickened by lead, they should look for some more likely source. Maybe they're eating the paint off their cribs.

This is just another of the back door attempts to ban hunting or make it too expensive for most of us.

Depleted Uranium bullets are expensive.

More seriously, eagles are apex predators, they concentrate heavy metals from their prey, building higher levels in their bodies than in the prey. I would suspect they would get much more lead from the fish they eat.

Yes you read correctly lead fragments in gut piles.

Submitted by teri.w on Sat, 01/14/2012 at 10:09 pm.

One of the eagles at the Wildlife Center "passed" a lead fragment. In the late 1990s, a study funded by the Minnesota DNR found that 60 percent of free-flying eagles trapped at their wintering grounds along the MS River had elevated lead levels in their blood. A connection between high eagle admissions with lead poisoning, deer hunting season, and the presence of irregularly shaped lead fragments and deer hair in the stomachs of sick eagles led Raptor Center staff to new hypothesis: Bald eagles were ingesting lead by feeding on downed deer and gut piles during deer-hunting season." This is not any kind of conspiracy to ban guns or hunting. All is being asked is to bury gut piles. Nothing else.

I've been hunting..........

Submitted by rickh81501 on Sat, 01/14/2012 at 3:15 pm.

I've been hunting for over 40 years and spend many hours in the woods each year. I have never seen a bald eagle or any eagle on a carcass. The coyotes which have invaded all of VA will end that possibility. They will eat a complete deer in way less than a night. Squirrels and other small game are not lost that often or wounded and escape when hunting. Ducks/geese the lead is gone for their hunting ammo.

DDT all over again

Submitted by williamjm3 on Sat, 01/14/2012 at 2:45 pm.

The amount of lead that an eagle would have to ingest from bullet fragments would mean that a eagle would have to have eaten the entrails of about 100+ deer. Which is impossible with the Coyote's, Bobcats and other carion eating animals out there. It's the leftist attempt to claim that hunting is causing a problem for the environment. I guess since Eric Holder got caught trying his "Fast and furious" scheme that got a U.S. Boarder patrol agent killed they have to come up with some other way of getting guns out of the hands of Americans.
RESTORE THE CONSTITUTION! DEFEAT SOCIALISM!

Many of us who care about

Submitted by hondamom on Sat, 01/14/2012 at 6:25 pm.

Many of us who care about the return of bald eagles are not against hunting. Ed Clark,head of the Wildlife Center of VA,is an avid hunter himself and has written information we all can use. We just want people to be informed so they know there are responsible alternatives to ignoring or denying the facts. Most hunters want to be informed. The website has an article on lead toxicity which is informative and in no way promotes a political agenda. I know we are all supicious of causes these days because they seem to line up on polarizing politics, but this cause does not want in any way want to limit anyone's right to use guns or limit the kind of ammunition used. We just want hunters to be aware of the facts.

If you have some facts, please give us a cite

Submitted by Wm D Tabor DDS on Sat, 01/14/2012 at 8:05 pm.

I've been looking all afternoon, and though there are about 2 million google hits on eagles and lead poisoning, nearly all point to press releases and articles by advocacy groups.

Of the three journal articles I could find, which do document finding toxic levels in SOME eagles, two simply state that the most likely source was scavenging game with bullet fragments, but give no evidence, and the third openly admits that the assumption that bullet fragments is based on speculation.

So, if you have valid scientific articles demonstrating scavenged bullet fragments to be the cause in eagles, I would very much like to see them.

But so far, this seems to be little more than the cause of the month.