By ANNA APPLEGATE
Staff writer
An eagle that was found this past weekend in Oil Creek State Park died Wednesday morning while receiving treatment for acute lead poisoning at Tamarack Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center in Saegertown.
According to the center’s Facebook page, the young female bird needed gastric lavage, a procedure that is designed to flush out the toxic metal that remained in her stomach.
The center reported that Tuesday’s procedure was successful, but that the eagle went into respiratory distress Wednesday morning and passed away.
Carol Holmgren, licensed wildlife rehabilitator and executive director of Tamarack Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center in Saegertown, said the female was 5 years old and was banded as a young bird in New York.
“We’ve treated other New York birds … They have a good banding program,” Holmgren said.
When asked if Holmgren thought this might be one of the breeding eagles in Oil Creek State park, she said it was possible, but not likely.
“She’s pretty young,” Holmgren said. She added that if the eagle had been breeding it would have been just this year.
The bird was the sixth bald eagle being treated for high levels of lead poisoning in as many weeks, according to the center.
The center said in a Facebook post that it usually sees two cases in an entire year.
Meanwhile, there was good news to report for the fifth eagle admitted to the center with high levels of lead.
Holmgren reported that that eagle’s blood lead levels were down to background levels when she spoke to the paper on Monday.
She said the next question was whether the young eagle found in McKean Township, Erie County, could regain his stamina.
She added that his recovery will depend on how much damage was done from the lead poisoning.
“We’ll see what he can do,” Holmgren said.
While Holmgren and the center deal with the recent increase in lead cases, she said she has been having “a lot of good conversations” about the eagles and lead poisoning.
She said the comments have all been really positive and that people should be “patient with the process of change.”
She stressed that it doesn’t take very much lead to affect an eagle once it is ingested.
All it takes is “a small fragment … half the size of one’s pinkie finger. They don’t have to ingest an entire bullet,” Holmgren said.
She and the center continued to remind people to bury the remains of hunting animals left in the field, switch to lead-free ammo and use lead-free sinkers when fishing to help the eagles.
Topic not new, but research underway
The issue of eagles and lead poisoning is not new, but some high publicity cases seem to have increased interest in the topic, according to Dr. Justin Brown, agency veterinarian with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, who works out of State College.
Brown said for several years that the agency has submitted deceased bald eagles for necropsy, whether lead poisoning was suspected or not.
“Certainly, every year it (lead poisoning) is one of the more common causes. It is something we see every year,” Brown said.
“It has been on our radar for quite some years,” he said. “We’ve been taking action to not only document, but to learn as much as we can.”
He said the agency isn’t just looking for lead and that researchers are looking for a host of things.
Brown plans to give an update on the lead topic when the Game Commission meets Monday, Sept. 25.
He said the presentation will be an update on the topic of eagles and lead poisoning provided to the commissioners, and the work he is doing with eagles is part of a larger research project that is ongoing.
Brown said that by looking at when the eagle was exposed, the age of the bird, the area where it was found and other factors, more can be understood about the topic.
“If efforts are going to be made to manage the disease (or condition) … we want to provide the best and the most information on the topic that we can,” Brown said.
Anna Applegate, Good Times editor, can be reached at goodtimes.thederrick@gmail.com or (814) 677-8364.
