Wouldn't lead poisoning be from lead fishing tackle, not shot/bullets? Bald Eagles eat primarily fish.
Weights, jigs, etc...? Often? Heck, for a jig, lead IS the part they try to swallow.I don't know... How often do fish swallow lead weights?
Weights, jigs, etc...? Often? Heck, for a jig, lead IS the part they try to swallow.
Did a little googling for actual information, rather than "someone said":
https://www.raptor.umn.edu/our-research/lead-poisoning
Seems that the eagles can/do likely switch to carrion during the winter, and may be picking up lead from gut piles and carcasses left by hunters.
Serious question: if eagles are getting lead poisoning from eating carcasses with lead residue, why aren't avid hunters getting the same from eating all the animals they harvest? Would they not contain the same lead residue?
DDT and now lead...while we have the largest Eagle population in a long while. If they want to find what's killing the birds they just need to look at the nearest wind farm.
This is just more crap to control our lives. Flock MSN and their communist overlords.
They keep playing the same plays, over and over again. Dead children, starving grandmas, dead animals, struggling single mothers or some combination or permutation of those sob stories...over and over again.
Research on loons from six New England states has shown that on the majority of lakes where dead adult breeding loons were found between 1987 and 2002, about 26% of these loons died from lead poisoning. Some lakes were identified as hot spots with lead causing over 50% of documented causes of death.
In Michigan, another 15-year study examined 186 dead loons and revealed that lead poisoning — primarily from lead jigs — was the number one cause of death at 24% (44/186) of overall mortality. Limited research in Minnesota has also documented lead poisoning of loons. A study conducted by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency concluded that lead poisoning accounted for 12 percent of the dead adult loons with known causes of death.
Between 1980 and 1996, the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota reported lead poisoning in 138 of 650 eagles they treated. Since 1996, 43 additional eagles were treated for lead poisoning including 22 last year. Most of the time, the source of the lead cannot be detected as the birds have cast the material out of their systems. Because lead shot was banned in waterfowl production areas in the early 1990s, bullet fragments in big game carcasses, lead shot lodged in upland game and lead fishing tackle are considered possible sources of lead poisoning of eagles.
Maybe.
But lead is toxic and there are suitable alternatives. Fisherman have the option to voluntarily use those alternatives now or be forced to use them later.
...But having been one of those that have been gullible to past hysterias that never came true—color me skeptical.
I was casting boolits in a respirator and a friend of mine reminded me that we all grew up biting sinkers onto the fishing line...