FULTON, Ill. — Miss Majestic, the bald eagle found with lead poisoning in Henry County, has passed away. Since then, Hog Capital Wildlife Rescue in Kewanee, Illinois has found two more bald eagles with confirmed lead poisoning. Both those eagles also died.
"The lead poisoning is a big issue," says Ed Britton, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Refuge district manager. "And there's very little public awareness about this. "It's actually been a mortality factor for many. many years. It's just gone unknown."
Britton says eagles, owls and hawks get lead poisoning from lead ammunition. Hunters dress their kills in the field often, leaving behind gut piles. But Britton says those piles can have hundreds of deadly lead fragments in them. Eagles, especially when they scavenge in the spring, eat the guts along with the lead.
"And a small tiny piece of lead smaller than a grain of rice, if ingested by an eagle, will kill them," Britton says. "It gets into the nervous system. It affects muscular movement. It affects their visibility. It affects so many things that oftentimes when we come upon them, either they're blind or they're too weak to fly."
Britton says large amounts of lead kill an eagle in just a few days. But if it's a small amount, he says it can take more than a weak. The eagle gets weaker and weaker and eventually starves to death because it can't hunt or fly.
The Hog Capital Wildlife Rescue team has seen eagles on both ends of the spectrum.
"For us to see this many pass away, it's very scary," says board member Breanne Bryner. "You just look at them and you just feel they're not gonna make it."
Bryner says they sent two eagles to the University of Illinois for treatment. Miss Majestic was diagnosed early but it wasn't enough to save her. Honor, another eagle, had a more severe case when he passed away. The third eagle was too critical to transport and died at the rescue.
But Bryner and Britton say the solution to all this is simple: lead-free ammunition.
Britton says copper and steel are good alternatives that aren't lethal to other wildlife. But Bryner says some people in Henry County say they've had a hard time finding it.
Britton says a lot of stores don't carry it. He says he hopes more awareness and education will get more people looking for lead-free ammunition.