The TV show I watched, also showed where the lead comes from that eagles pick up a lot of the time. They said they find fishing sinkers, leaders and line along with bullets under the eagle's nest on the ground. They said they even find line with hooks and sinkers hanging from the nests. I don't recall them saying about finding any toy trucks or soldiers in the nest, though. Anyone who fishes knows that a fish can break the line and the hook can stay in its mouth along with the leader and sinkers. So an eagle will come along and pick up the fish and carry it back to its nest. That is how they end up eating the lead sinkers and the babies do too. Saying that fish don't eat sinkers so Eagles won't pick sinkers up with fish is quite silly. Also, a well-placed shot into a deer through the heart or lungs can still result in the deer still running several hundred yards, from what they said on the show. So the deer can get lost when the hunter cannot find it and after the animal dies, the animals will eat the deer and birds will carry off some of the remains including the lead bullet that is in the deer. And a deer, after a badly placed shot, can live for days and be lost, far away from where it was shot, from what they said. Also, a bullet can strike a large bone and fragmentize, so a hunter might not always find the entire bullet. And pieces of a bullet can remain inside the part of the deer when the hunter leaves the remains behind. They said, many times, animals only get wounded, crawl off and die with the lead intact after several days, so they don't always get gutted, in which case the lead remains in the animals and can be found in the eagle's feces. The same thing can happen with smaller animals like squirrels, rabbits or birds,etc.. They can be shot and run or fly off and an eagle will find it dead and take it back to its nest. They said that is how they end up eating the lead shot. Hmmm....How many times have we heard people on here saying they missed a shot at an an animal and it flying or running off? They said that since eagles main food supply is fish and animal meat, it isn't all that hard to see where it comes from. They can also x-ray an eagle and find bullet fragments. Most of the time it is not that hard to figure out what a bullet fragment is. Also, they said the size of the animal eating the shot is significant also. Whereas a couple pieces of shot in a human, won't be as bad as in a smaller animal like an eagle or a baby eagle...... I didn't think it was all that important to go into all this detail when I told the story, originally. Anyone can pretty much read about it if they GOOGLE the subject- if they take the time. I don't see anywhere that I said I believed EVERYTHING they said. I believe I said I watched the show and it was interesting. I always like to consider both sides of a story. And I am sure that when "SOME" people have been hunting, fishing and shooting as long as I have, which is most of my life and around the world, "THEY" will learn more and be more educated on the subject. But as always, some things get mistakenly misspoken...................... Here is a picture I had someone take as a joke of the "Whopper" I caught off of the pier, south of St. Petersburg a few years ago. As you can see, when I pulled this in, it had several yards of fishing line which I removed,- the hook is still in it's mouth along with several large sinkers (about the size of my finger) that are in my hand. You can imagine what would have happened if a diving bird, like one of the pelicans that are constantly overhead, would have dove into the water and picked up this entire mass and easily eaten it. So, fish don't have to eat sinkers for a bird to pick it up and eat it. Nuff said.................One thing I do know is- it's in the mid 60s this week here in the mid-west--the first week of January. So, I'll be out shooting. Whoo-Hoo!! :
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/4ZBkCor.jpg)
