Natural causes ruled out in deaths of 18 birds in Maryland and Delaware.
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| One of 13 dead eagles found near Federalsburg, MD (MD Natural Resources Police) |
The first deaths were discovered in February in a field near Federalsburg, MD. A man searching for deer antlers found four of the birds and called Natural Resources Police, who found nine more.
It was the largest die-off of eagles in the state in 30 years, according to the NRP. Investigators determined the birds did not die of natural causes, but aren’t saying much else.
“We know what happened to the birds in Maryland, but we are not disclosing that because of the nature of the investigation,” said Catherine Hibbard, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Office’s Northeast Region.
Her agency has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the Maryland case. She said the investigators know it was a human cause, but do not know whether it was deliberate or not.
Hibbard said the crime, if one occurred, could be a violation of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Maximum fines under the eagle law are $100,000; for migratory bird violations, the penalty can be $15,000 and imprisonment up to a year.
This many eagle deaths in one location is rare, Hibbard said. In other cases where dead eagles have been found, the cause was either a shooting or a homeowner or farmer putting out poison for predators. The predator eats the poison, dies, and the eagle feeds on its carcass. Some eagles have also died from lead poisoning after feeding on animals killed or wounded with ammunition containing lead. Lead shot was banned 25 years ago for hunting waterfowl after studies found ducks, geese and swans being poisoned. It remains legal in many places for hunting other game, though.
Hibbard said the agency doesn’t yet know what happened to the eagles in Delaware. Five were found dead about 30 miles from the Federalsburg site, but investigators do not believe the cases are related. The Delaware birds, like the Maryland ones, will go to the agency’s laboratory in Oregon for necropsies. The cause of death can take a few weeks to determine.
Three eagles found impaired but still alive with the dead birds in Delaware were taken to Tri State Bird Rescue and Research in Newark, DE, where they remain under care.
The nation’s bird has rebounded well since its perilous state 50 years ago, when the pesticide DDT caused the shells to thin and the population to plummet. In 1963, the United States counted only 417 nesting pairs, according to National Geographic. Today, it has more than 10,000.
The bird’s recovery in the Chesapeake region was clouded at one point in the 1980s by concern about another pesticide, carbofuran, then widely used on corn and other farm crops. The Environmental Protection Agency got it phased out beginning in 1991 after it was linked to the deaths of more than a dozen bald eagles and other birds in the Chesapeake region.
The Bay region now hosts more than 1,000 nesting pairs, from Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to Aberdeen Proving Ground northeast of Baltimore to the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge near Fredericksburg. In Maryland, eagles have doubled since 2004 to 700 pairs, and Virginia has more than 800 pairs, said Glenn Therres, associate director of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife and Heritage Service.
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“We really appreciate the concern people have shown for eagles in both states,” Hibbard said. “We worked hard to recover eagles and get them off the list. And when we see eagles dying in mass numbers like this, it is disturbing.”Source: Bay Journal News
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