A Utah wildlife rehab center is now asking for hunters to make a switch in ammunition from lead to copper following the death of an eagle in the Beehive State. “In the end, the loss of this beautiful individual was preventable,” wrote the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah on their social media.
The rehabilitation center says that the bald eagle is their first of the year and that he died of lead poisoning stemming from the bullets of a hunting rifle. They made that determination following the use of a lead-testing machine.
“While the symptoms are similar to those when an Eagle contracts the West Nile Virus (WNV), the WNV is primarily a “summer disease” as the prime vector is the mosquito,” the center stated.
According to the Wildlife Rehabilitiation Center of Northern Utah, lead poisoning in predators, like the bald eagle, happens each year soon after the start of rifle deer season and continues until March of each year. They say it’s due to predators and scavengers eating from gut piles left following successful hunts.