Stan, you need to talk to your local raptor rehabilitator, if you have any in your vicinity. They get plenty of sick and dying patients. Especially eagles....
Larry, a quick few minute search brought up the 'Georgia Wildlife Rescue Association'. They have a feature story on a Dr. Jay Whitesell, who is 'the most experienced and respected raptor rehabilitator in the southeastern United States'. He 'works on' fifty raptors a year, not even one a week.
The good doctor's work is commendable, your sensationalism is questionable, but it's a good tactic for motivating anti hunters. Ever notice how in recent years, if you see a picture of a number of dead eagles arranged to make a point, that regardless of the topic, the picture tends to originate from recovered raptors killed by wind turbines. Not a speck of lead or any other toxin, just acceptable agenda that makes some habitat completely unusable for some raptors. Many times those are the very same 'researchers', who downplay those casualties due to policy.
Craig, kinda hard to rehabilitate a bird that dies after striking a wind turbine. We have plenty of them in Iowa. Matter of fact, Iowa is next to TX in the amount of electricity generated by wind turbines. The raptor rehabilitators do good work, but they're not like Miracle Max in "The Princess Bride". If the bird is dead, or even mostly dead as Max would say, chances are they aren't going to revive it.
If you can't google and find anything about the raptor rehabilitators and the various DNR's ending up with eagles that are suffering from lead poisoning, you're like the "see no evil" monkey. It's there. But hey, everyone that's claiming eagles die from lead poisoning is lying. . . just like they lied to us about waterfowl. Right. The truth is out there . . . it's those darned aliens from Roswell that are killing the eagles. And killed the ducks and geese previously.
And referring to an earlier post you made about eagles eating waterfowl and lead poisoning before lead was banned on waterfowl . . . You're neglecting the fact that there were far fewer eagles back a quarter century ago, when the lead ban on waterfowl took place, than there are now. About 3,000 breeding pairs in the entire country. 20 years later, the midwinter bird count came up with a tally of 3,000 eagles, just in Iowa. The reason we see more sick, dead, and dying eagles today? Because there are a lot more of them to get sick and die than there were 25 years ago. That's excellent evidence that the eagle population is doing well . . . but also significantly increases the chance that someone is going to come into contact with a sick or dead eagle. But I never heard anyone say that eagles dying from lead shot ingested when they scavenged waterfowl was not an issue of concern when lead shot was banned.
Last edited by L. Brown; 01/25/16 07:49 PM.
