As lead appears in eagles around Illinois, experts believe lead ammunition plays a key role

A study conducted by various researchers as published in the journal Science found that 46% of 1,210 bald eagles sampled in 38 states across the country have harmful levels of toxic lead in their bones.

While the Starved Rock region hasn’t had reports of its eagle population showing signs of lead poisoning, the Illinois Raptor Center said that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

“When an eagle comes in and doesn’t have lead in it, it’s a bit of a shock to us,” said Jacques Nuzzo, Program Director for the Illinois Raptor Center. “Lead is prevalent within scavenger species like the bald eagle, which does a lot of scavenging.”

Lead functions as a neurotoxin that can impair an eagle’s balance and stamina, reducing its ability to fly, hunt and reproduce. In high doses, lead can cause seizures, breathing difficulty and death. Nuzzo has seen these symptoms firsthand, and called them upsetting.

“We had two eagles come in recently that both died in the same week,” Nuzzo said. “The last one, man, it was seizing bad and I just get mad.”

The easiest thing to blame, Nuzzo said, is ammunition. The common practice for deer hunting is to strip a deer of its pelt and meat and leave the guts for scavengers. Nuzzo said x-rays show these gut piles often contain lead.

“The idea is that you have lead fragments in ammunition,” Nuzzo said. “You shoot with a slug, which is a massive chunk of led, a massive bullet. It’s designed to mushroom out and become a larger projectile and when that hits the deer, it can get lodged in the bone or elsewhere.”

Sgt. Phil Wire, with the Illinois Conservation Police, said hunting near the Illinois River at Matthiessen and Starved Rock State Parks is limited to doves and requires lead-free ammo.

Ammunition isn’t the only source of lead raptors have to deal with. Nuzzo said songbirds they’ve tested also have high levels of lead, although it doesn’t affect them as greatly because they’re urbanized. Sparrows, starlings and pigeons are used to the waste that comes from being near cities.

However, raptors such as the Cooper’s Hawk and the Eastern Screech Owl feed on these small birds.

Nuzzo said that’s just one hypothesis for where these elevated lead levels come from. Eagles aren’t urbanized and they don’t typically live in areas with old homes and lead paint.

“It all goes back to the 1970s,” Nuzzo said. “We had this huge push to stop the use of lead in gasoline and paint, which did happen. Then there was a push to clean it all up and a lot of promises made. Then nothing happened.”

Nuzzo points to Flint, Michigan, as a major story regarding lead in regards to its water, but he said Flint isn’t the only place still dealing with the effects of it.

Cities everywhere still have old, run-down homes that contain lead paint, and old gas stations may leave contaminated soil behind when they close down.

As to what can be done right now, Nuzzo said it comes down to personal choice. The average person won’t be able to push change at the societal level, but enough people making the right personal choices will force businesses selling ammunition or fishing supplies to start producing cheaper, safer alternatives.

“The reason lead is so prevalent is that lead is a very, very cheap material that’s cheap to produce and cheap to buy,” Nuzzo said. “When you start looking at things like ceramic ammunition, that gets expensive and I already spend enough money on my outdoor gear.”

Despite that, Nuzzo said he’s gone completely lead free for his own personal hunting and fishing for the first time this year. He believes going lead-free is not just best for the raptors, but it’s what’s best for everyone.