RHD45, you may have missed my post with figures on the Iowa eagle population, straight from the DNR. Eagles in Iowa are no longer either threatened or endangered. It's a shame that the occasional eagle may die from eating lead, just like it's a shame that the occasional deer dies when hit by a car. But because our eagles are no longer threatened or endangered, we need to focus on what's happening to the SPECIES as a whole, not individual birds. If we start worrying about individual birds within an otherwise healthy species population . . . well then, where does that concern take us, logically, if we follow it? It takes us to the point that we'd better hang up our guns, because we're killing things with lead too--and darn it, I guess we ought to stop.

There are 100 times as many nesting pairs of eagles in Iowa as there were 25 years ago or so. Why are rehabilitators encountering the occasional eagle that's sick from having ingested lead, when we never used to hear about that? Well, we never used to hear about that because eagles in Iowa were so doggone rare! Now we have lots, and the population is growing. If the population is growing, whatever is happening to the occasional individual bird may be unfortunate, but it should only be of serious concern when it threatens the population as a whole. That's far from the case with eagles in Iowa becoming sick and/or dying from ingesting lead. Rehabilitators express their concern because, as rehabilitators, they work with individual animals. But if we all adopt that attitude, then we're in the process of standing modern wildlife management on its head.

You want to worry about something in Iowa? Worry about the decline in our pheasant numbers, which is not due to lead poisoning but rather to a combination of habitat loss and weather. Worry about the ruffed grouse we used to have in the NE corner of the state, but scarcely have any these days because most of our timber is mature and they need young regrowth. Worry about the quail we used to have in good numbers in the southern part of the state but don't any more, again due to habitat loss. Worry about species that can be shown to be in decline, and why they are declining--not about individual mortality of birds in an otherwise healthy, growing population. Even if they happen to be eagles.