According to a study, eagles may suffer as a result of their scavenged meal. From 2010 to 2018, the researchers discovered high rates of lead poisoning in the two most popular varieties of eagles in the United States, bald eagles and golden eagles. Their findings indicate that eagles are consuming lead pieces from bullets left behind by hunters in animal corpses.
The researchers looked at the blood, bone, liver, and feathers of over 1,200 eagles from 38 different states in the United States. Chronic lead poisoning was found in 47 percent of bald eagles and 46 percent of golden eagles in the study. Chronic or repetitive lead exposure can cause lesions, weakness while flying, convulsions, and paralysis in birds.
Todd Katzner, a research wildlife biologist at the US Geological Survey and co-author of the study said that a bullet of fragments into several bits every time as it impacts a deer. It merely took a teeny-tiny particle, the size of a pinhead, to kill an eagle.
Lead poisoning poses a hazard to the survival of eagle species. Lead poisoning lowered the annual population growth of bald eagles by 4% and golden eagles by 1%, according to the researchers.
Both golden and bald eagles are not threatened with extinction. Since 2009, the number of bald eagles in the United States has more than quadrupled, from roughly 72,000 to 317,000. However, the population of golden eagles in the United States is remains limited (about 30,000 birds) and in danger of extinction.
Katzner said that the role of that lead is definitely larger for these golden eagle populations, simply since these populations are so much smaller and in such a perilous situation. He added that occasionally, eagles end up in a rehabilitation centre. They're unwell, and when they're X-rayed, you can find lead shards in their intestines.
For decades, scientists have known that eagles are exposed to lead. Researchers hadn't been able to estimate how deadly or prevalent lead exposure was among US eagles before Thursday's study.
Adult eagles had a higher risk of chronic lead poisoning than younger eagles, according to Slabe, since they were exposed to more lead during their lifespan. However, other eagles suffered from acute poisoning, indicating that they were exposed to high levels of lead for a short period of time. The researchers didn't keep track of whether the birds lived, although some eagles with acute lead poisoning die quickly, even before symptoms appear.
Acute poisoning was more frequent in the winter, when eagles had limited access to their usual dietary sources of fish, rabbits, and squirrels.
In the analysis, up to 33% of bald eagles and up to 35% of golden eagles displayed evidence of acute lead poisoning. The researchers also checked out the idea that the eagles were exposed as a result of being shot.