GRAND TRAVERSE COUNTY - According to The American Eagle Foundation, 47% of bald eagles are found to have chronic lead poisoning.
“I’m not anti-hunting. I mean, I am a hunter. Just anti-lead,” shares James Manley, executive director of the Skegemog Raptor Center.
Bald eagles officially only became our national bird this past Christmas Eve, and groups such as Skegemog Raptor Center in Grand Traverse County are spreading awareness on how to honor these birds and protect them from harm.
The Skegemog Raptor Center has been in operation for a little more than four years. From what they have seen, spent lead ammunition is a big harm to eagles and other birds in the wild.
“So in 2022, we began testing every bald eagle that we admit, for, rehabilitation for lead, and it’s been pretty shocking. All of them have blood in their systems. and, you know, the for certainly for bald eagles. The research has made it pretty clear that it’s a result of spent less ammunition because lead is so soft, it’ll fragment when it hits a carcass, and so little microscopic fragments left behind in gut piles or animals that are shot but not retrieved because they didn’t get a clean kill shot,” explains Manley.
As a result of this, Manley has had to humanely euthanize the birds. Just recently, he had to put one down because it had a missing leg from a hunter’s trap and was full of high amounts of lead.
“We try and, as heartbreaking as it is to have to put a bird down, you know, it is an honor to be able to provide that end for the bird, I mean, it’s certainly not pleasant, but ... it’s the respect I want to show these birds,” he said.
Even though Congress now officially recognizes the bald eagle as our national bird, Courtney Miller, a member of the Grand Traverse Ottawa and Chippewa Indians who works with the birds at the center, feels it is not enough to protect the birds nationwide.
“We were offended, you know, to some degree, when they were talking about making this a national bird, considering that they can’t even honor a single treaty that the indigenous nation has made with the United States. and now you want to say that you can honor, you know, one of our symbols, one of our totems of life,” says Miller, a bio field tuner.
Both Manley and Miller are hoping that by spreading awareness, people start rethinking about using lead ammunition.
“It affects their brain stem to the point where their body literally is not remembering how to breathe. This one had 976g. I picked them up Christmas Eve in 2022, and you know, his body literally is getting out of breath. This is just shortly before we had to humanely euthanize him,” he shares.
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