Six bald eagles have died and another six are recovering after ingesting poison in an area north of Duncan, the Raptor Rescue Society says.
Robyn Radcliffe executive director of the society, said it is suspected all the birds fed on a carcass that had been improperly disposed of after being destroyed on a farm near Duncan.
The surviving eagles were disoriented and unable to fly when they were found, but Radcliffe said Monday that all are recovering and will likely be released in the next few weeks.
When farm animals are destroyed or euthanized, they must be buried to ensure the remains don’t contaminate the environment or poison other animals.
Radcliffe said the case is being investigated by the Conservation Officer Service.
The suspected source of the carcass has been identified. Radcliffe said she’s pleased it means there likely won’t be any further problems for the area’s eagle population.
She said the poisoning was likely due to ignorance and was not intentional.
“It’s a learning opportunity for everybody involved to remember that it’s so important for us to be considering what we are putting in the environment for all our wildlife,” Radcliffe said.
She said the society began receiving calls last Wednesday about sick or injured eagles in the Herd Road area of North Cowichan.
“We had two calls in the morning about two different eagles in a similar location,” she said.
The society recovered the eagles, which were both alive, and took them to the Island Animal Hospital in Nanaimo.
Then, on Saturday, the society received a call from a conservation officer who had received a report of two more eagles in the same area — one dead and the other sick.
“It was in a very similar location, so we realized: ‘OK, we better start searching; this could all be related,’ ” Radcliffe said.
“We started searching and in the next two hours we found another eight eagles.”
Of the six that are still alive, Radcliffe said the two rescued last Wednesday are now in the society’s care and doing well.
“Fingers crossed that they should be released in the next one to two weeks,” she said. “It’s not a huge recovery time if we can catch it in time and treat it like this.”
The other four eagles were still at Island Animal Hospital Sunday.
Veterinarian Dr. Ken Langelier said one of the birds has developed pneumonia, but he remained hopeful that all of them will eventually be released.
“We have had cases like this before,” he said. “In the late ’80s, I actually had 29 bald eagles brought in all at once that had been feeding on the carcass of a cow that had been euthanized.
“The eagles are scavengers and if they see a free meal they’ll go at it and they will gorge, and as the drug hits them they just start to fall asleep and act in sort of drunken state, flying into things or just laying on the ground or falling off branches and trees. It’s a pretty scary thing out there,” Langelier said.
The animal hospital has been treating the surviving eagles by keeping them warm, giving them activated charcoal that binds with any poison in their stomachs or intestines, and providing intravenous fluids to keep them hydrated and flush the poison from their systems.
“They’ve certainly done quite well considering that [Saturday] they were flat out,” Langelier said.
“You can still pick them up and they don’t fight too much because they’re still sedated, but at least the drug is exiting their body and I hope to see a full recovery.”
Radcliffe said the case serves as a reminder about the impacts of all the other chemicals that end up in the environment and the potential threats they pose to wildlife.
If anyone sees a downed, sick, injured or dead eagle, they’re asked to call the society’s emergency line at 778-936-0732.
