buck460XVR
Member
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2007
- Messages
- 10,051
How much bigger is poaching, as compared to lead poisoning, for eagles? I’m not doubting you
I mis-spoke, I meant to say "besides poaching". Trauma and lead poisoning are the two top causes of death for Eagles today. Trauma can be caused by many things, including gunshots, just as poaching can be done by poisoning. This is how most fish farms and game farms illegally eliminate Eagles preying on their crop.
I’ve been eating my harvested wild game for over 50 years. I have probably eaten a couple of pellets or fragments in my day. would rather find a lead pellet between my teeth than steel shot any day.
Our state DNR has been adamantly advising hunters to be aware of the possibility of lead poisoning from eating game harvested with lead projectiles, especially for children and pregnant/nursing women. Here's a good link from our neighbor Minnesota......
https://www.grandforksherald.com/no...-7-of-Minnesota-venison-laced-with-toxic-lead
I would like to understand where eagles are picking up lead in Wisconsin. You might make an argument it's from gut piles, but that would seem unlikely given hunting is seasonal and other animals like coyotes are top on scavenging. Plus why aren't we seeing the same issue with turkey vultures? They greatly outnumber eagles and are usually faster to find carrion. I would think there is some other source of poisoning for eagles, especially since the majority of their diet is fish.
Deer hunting with firearms here runs from early October thru January. While lead ingestion is seasonal, it's a long season. Hard for Eagles to eat fish when the lakes, rivers and streams are frozen. Finding and eating frozen deer carcasses is easier. It takes a lead fragment the size of a grain of rice to kill an Eagle (One #5 pellet). Lead does not naturally leave the Eagles body, but will accumulate over long periods of time till it becomes lethal. This is the same with DDT. Turkey Vultures do get lead poisoning, but folks don't have the same emotions about them as they do Eagles and other Raptors. The gizzards in birds tends to grind down lead fragments and makes them easier to be absorbed and harder to eliminate thru fecal material than with mammals. Birds of prey also have very acidic stomachs as opposed to mammals and other birds.