Lead Toxicity in Raptors

Lead toxicity is a significant cause of admission for Bald Eagles at the Wildlife Center of Virginia. Each year, dozens of eagles are admitted with lead toxicity; vultures also often have significant levels of lead in their bloodstream. Occasionally, other birds of prey such as owls and hawks are admitted with lead toxicity. Few birds with high levels of lead make a complete recovery.

How Do Raptors Get Lead Poisoning

Eagles and other avian scavengers are getting the lead primarily by scavenging the carcasses or remains of animals left in the field by hunters. When shot with lead ammunition, game animals can contain very small pieces of lead, which fragment upon impact with the target. 

Lead Poisoning in Raptors at the Wildlife Center

Each year, the Wildlife Center admits dozens of birds with lead toxicity, including eagles, vultures, hawks, and owls. Lead poisoning is most often seen in Bald Eagles and vultures at the Center since these birds often scavenge gut piles and other unrecovered game that contains lead fragments. Occasionally, the Center also treats owls, hawks, waterfowl, and other avian species for lead. 

HOW TO HELP

Lead toxicity is a significant issue, but could be relatively easy to solve through education and voluntary compliance with safety procedures by hunters.

Resources for Hunters

The threat of lead poisoning of eagles and other birds of prey can be almost entirely eliminated if hunters will voluntarily switch to non-lead ammunition for hunting, thus eliminating the primary source of lead affecting eagles and other scavengers.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q: Can’t we just ban all lead bullets and shot?
A: The challenge is not to find a way to ban the use of all lead – it is to find a way to reduce the amount of toxic lead fragments available to non-target wildlife and to do it without unreasonably affecting those whose activities are otherwise legal and acceptable to the public. Most lead-based firearms ammunition is used for national defense and public safety – by the military and police agencies. Target and competitive shooters, and those who own firearms for self-defense, consume the majority of munitions purchased by the private sector. Hunters use only a small percentage of all ammunition sold in the United States each year. A ban on all lead-based ammo would deal a serious blow to national security and public safety, and would hurt a lot of law-abiding firearms users, who are not contributing to the problem of lead-poisoned wildlife!

Q: What about the recent ban on hunting big game with lead in California – what about THAT kind of ban? Why shouldn’t we ban lead for hunting? 
A: The original concern about hunting with lead in California stemmed from a number of endangered California Condors that died from lead poisoning.  Initially, the ban was put in place only in the specific areas to which the condors had been reintroduced.   Eventually, the ban was extended statewide, for implementation in 2019.    Unfortunately, this ban came about in such a way that hunters felt steam-rolled in the process.  Recent surveys suggested that little effort was made to inform and educate hunters or involve them with the conservation effort related to condors.   As a result, there are some very hard feelings on the part of the hunting and shooting public—hard feelings that may well have been avoided if a more collaborative approach had been tried.   The political reality is that most states have a far more powerful hunting community than does California.  In states like Virginia, the right to hunt and fish is actually in the state constitution, so enacting ammunition bans, over the objections of the hunting and shooting public, will not be easily done.  This is why the Wildlife Center of Virginia advocates information and education as the first steps toward eliminating this preventable threat.

Q: I have heard that some groups claim that eagles are getting the lead from sources other than bullets. Is this true?
A: There is a lot of published misinformation on this issue. One writer for the National Shooting Sports Foundation implied that condors, vultures, and eagles were getting lead poisoning from sources like discarded car batteries! While people and animals may have some exposure to lead from contaminated water, paint, or other similar sources, the levels of lead being detected in eagles and other scavengers are far too high to be associated with trace amounts of lead in the environment.  Multiple studies comparing isotopic compositions of lead found in the bloodstream of Bald Eagles and other scavengers with the lead used in ammunition have confirmed that lead from spent ammunition is the source of this toxicity.

While we’ve never found pieces of a car battery on raptor radiographs, our veterinary team has found many instances of tiny lead fragments in the gastrointestinal tracts of poisoned birds.

Courtesy of: The Wildlife Center of Virginia