- Talk about suffering from success.
In nature, things are often not as they seem. A gluttonous bald eagle in Missouri recently demonstrated that by causing animal conservationists unnecessary worry.
The bird was spotted sitting around without doing anything, which isn’t something they usually do. Believing the eagle was injured, they captured it without much resistance.
Yup, that sure sounds like an injured bird.
However, during a medical examination, it turned out that the bald eagle wasn’t hurt at all. If anything, it was doing extremely well.
It had simply eaten so much that it couldn’t take flight.
Although overeating can be dangerous to animals, the eagle survived without problems. After it had digested its supersized meal, it was returned to nature near where it was found.
We can’t help but feel there’s some national commentary somewhere in this story.
Obviously Distressed
The bald eagle was spotted last week at the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield in southwestern Missouri. According to witnesses, the bird had been sitting about without moving much for a long time.
That’s not something America’s favorite bird of prey is known to do. So, worried onlookers informed the park authorities, who in turn got in touch with the Missouri Department of Conservation.
As conservation department authorities arrived to take a look at the bald eagle, they noticed that it wasn’t making much of an effort to keep away. Sure, it wasn’t happy about people getting close to it, but it didn’t try to fly away.
There was no doubt about it — the bird had somehow injured itself.
Fortunately, help had arrived. The conservation department staff captured the eagle in a large dog crate and took it away for rehabilitation.
‘Too Fat to Fly’
Once the eagle arrived at an animal hospital, the vets needed to know what was wrong with it. So, they took X-rays of the bird.
As it turns out, the eagle wasn’t injured in any way. It was just suffering from success.
“The bird, originally reported to be injured, was found to be healthy but engorged with raccoon — in other words, too fat to fly,” Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield said on a Facebook post.
Indeed, the X-ray pictures taken at the conservation facility clearly show a dismembered raccoon paw inside its distended stomach.
Those of you familiar with bald eagles might wonder where the bird got the raccoon from. Bald eagles are primarily fish eaters and typically don’t hunt mammalian prey as large as a raccoon.
Well, the vets have a probable answer. The raccoon is likely roadkill.
Although bald eagles prefer fish, they’re pretty lazy when it comes to securing their next meal. They will happily chow down on a cadaver if it means they don’t have to waste their energy on going fishing.
And that’s probably what this eagle did. Having found the dead raccoon, it started eating — and it kept eating until it was so full it simply couldn’t fly.
Now, overeating can be very dangerous to animals. Unlike you and me, not every beast has an “I think I’m full now” reaction and if plentiful food is available, they can keep gorging themselves until their stomachs rip.
Fortunately, that’s not what happened to the bald eagle. After it had safely digested its raccoon meal, conservationists returned it to the same place at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield where they picked it up.
Eat Lead
Although this bald eagle flew off no worse for wear, not all of America’s symbolic birds are that lucky. In fact, they’re being killed off in droves by hunters.
Before you fetch your torch and pitchfork, let’s be clear — hunters are not shooting the birds. However, they’re inadvertently giving them second-hand lead poisoning.
Bald eagles that have died from lead poisoning have been found in many states, from Pennsylvania to Indiana. Additionally, one study found that 50% of bald eagles in the wild suffer from chronic lead poisoning.
The reason lies in their scavenging habits. As we mentioned, a bald eagle will eat dead animals if they’re the easiest available source of food.
However, if the animal was shot dead by a hunter, it will likely still contain lead from the bullet or shotgun pellets. Bald eagles are very vulnerable to lead poisoning, so swallowing even a single shotgun pellet can kill them.
As such, conservation authorities are urging hunters to switch to ammunition that doesn’t contain lead. That, or they could take what they shoot with them instead of leaving them rotting in the woods.