A majestic bald eagle soars overhead.
Raven Ridge Wildlife Center rehabs eagles, raptors and other animals
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Scott LaMar
A majestic bald eagle soars overhead.
Airdate: March 22, 2023
Raven Ridge Wildlife Center is a wildlife rehabilitation facility in Washington Boro in Lancaster County.
It offers rehabilitation services for injured raptors, mammals and waterfowl. Raven Ridge also provides wildlife education programs as well.
Just in the last month, two bald eagles have died after ingesting lead. That usually happens after an eagle has swallowed lead from the carcass of an animal that was killed by a hunter.
On The Spark Wednesday, Raven Ridge founder, director and rehabilitator Tracie Young, described what happens to eagles if they’ve ingested lead,”The lead poisoning in bald eagles is very debilitating. The birds that come in with the lead poisoning, they’re weak, they’re emaciated, they’re uncoordinated, they’re not able to move. They can’t fly, they can’t walk. They look like they’re stargazing, Like they’re just kind of looking off into space. Um, they have seizures. They haven’t eaten. They appear blind. If you can walk up to a bald eagle, there’s something wrong. They’re uncoordinated. A lot of times they’re hit by car first because they’re hungry, but they’re not coordinated enough to hunt. So they’re looking for an easy meal. And it only takes the size of two little BBs for an adult bald eagle to ingest. And if that is not caught in time or this bird brought to a rehab center like Raven Ridge, that will kill the bird.”
Young said hunters can find ammunition not made of lead,”The problem with lead is it’s easy to get. It’s cheap. A lot of sportsmen make their own ammunition at home. So lead is able to melt at a very low temperature. But the copper, the steel, the bismuth, it is a little more expensive. But what I explain to the sportsmen is when you use the alternative, the copper, the steel, the bismuth, when you hit your target, that bullet stays 99% intact. So you’re able to remove the entire bullet from what you’re hunting as far as lead. When lead hits the target, it fragments anywhere from 12 to 14 inches for point of impact. And that goes all through the meat. And it’s physically impossible to remove every piece of lead in the meat. So it’s not good for the sportsmen, too, that are consuming the game meat and using lead ammunition.”
Raven Ridge rehabs about two thousand animals a year. Young said red-tailed hawks are the animal they see most often,”These guys are usually alongside the highway. They’re up in the trees, they’re on the light posts, and they will hunt the field voles. A lot of them like to be in the median of the highway. So as soon as they see that voth, they’re coming down to get it, but they’re not taking in consideration here comes a car. So a lot of them are hit by cars, first year hatches, which means it’s time for you to go on your own now. So they’re poor hunters, so they’re starving. So we get a lot of those in here. Lead poisoning when they are first year hatch and they’re just kind of learning to be out on their own. They’re looking for an easy meal. So they’ll join the eagles a lot of time on carcasses and that. So, yeah, I’ve gotten several in with lead poisoning. Now, the other factor that we’re dealing with now is high pathogen avian flu. So now we have protocols in place here at the center where we actually have to test every bird of prey and waterfowl for avian influenza.”
