There is a new study out from Cornell concerning bald eagles and lead.  The short version: Hunters kill land mammals using lead shot, field dress the prey, and the remains are scavenged by bears, badgers, and everybody else including Bald Eagles. The study by Brenda Hanley and others, published in Wildlife Management, links the lead shot ingested by scavenging eagles to stunted growth.  Stunted, the eagles’ physiological buffer against disease or periods of food stress is reduced.

This lead poisoning of wildlife by hunters’ activity probably applies to all of the scavengers of lead ammo using hunters’ waste, but in this study, only eagles were addressed.

Krysten Schuler, one of the study’s authors, says, “Hopefully, this report will add information that compels hunters, as conservationists, to think about their ammunition choices.  Even though the population seems like it’s recovered, some perturbation could come along that could cause eagles to decline again.”

A press release from Cornell is here, and the original study is here.

Lead is a poison at any level, and we continue to put it in our environment, affecting other animals, as well as humans.  If you think this should be addressed, please bring this resolution to your precinct caucuses in order to give us (lead free) ammunition to help compel our legislators to address lead.  If you are reading this after February 1st, 2022, you can still contact your legislators in the Minnesota House and Senate and encourage them to get the lead out!

(The rest of our 2022 resolutions are here.)