Furadan, the pesticide used to kill those bald eagles, is being used to poison wildlife on a vast scale in Africa. A lion kills your cow, just sprinkle a few pennies worth on the carcass and the whole pride dies when they come back the next night. Along with every scavenger - hyena, jackal, eagle, and vulture - that feeds on it. Poisoning has been the primary factor in the collapse of lion populations, and vultures, which were ubiquitous in savanna Africa until twenty years ago, are now nearing extinction. Vultures are also poisoned deliberately by ivory poachers,so that authorities cannot easily find elephant carcasses, and for their bits and pieces for use in magic. Elephants are also targeted by poisoning waterholes. Lake fish are harvested for human consumption with Furadan and other chemicals.
As Brent said, not much good is happening out there.
New info on this issue (Maryland eagles/furadan) this week on local DC TV stations.
A raccoon was also found dead nearby to the eagles and it was determined that the raccoon was killed by furadan. It is suspected that the eagles had then fed on the dead raccoon. Information that conveniently or not was left out of most of the initial reporting.
My 2 cents. Still a bad thing but I don't believe that anyone was targeting the eagles.
