Stafford Co. hunters urged to use non-lead ammo after rise in calls about injured eagles
STAFFORD COUNTY, Va. (7News) — Getting calls about loose pets or wild raccoons, even wild deer or bears, can be normal for animal control. But in Stafford County, Virginia, there’s been an increase in calls about injured eagles.
The animal control division in Stafford County has seen more injured eagles show up in places like Thorny Point Road, near a huge body of water, a place where the department says eagles like to hunt.
Thorny Point Road is also where Stafford County found an eagle with an injured wing in August 2022. The department actually found a handful in the county and unfortunately, a lot of them tend to suffer from lead poisoning.
“It's either from lead sinkers or lead ammunition from hunters. Eagles are scavengers,” said Stafford County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Katherine Busch. “So if you have a hunter that butchers a fish or butchers, a deer and leaves the scraps more or less on the ground that's covered in those pellets or those sinkers, the eagles will scavenge that eat it may ingest the lead and then it gives them lead poisoning.”
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That’s why the department is urging hunters to consider switching to non-lead ammunition.
“To see a lot of the ones that we pick up that go to these wildlife centers and they're positive for such lead toxicity is like that's something that we as people hunters can do to change,” said Busch. “Even me as a fisherman, I try not to use lead weights and things like that, for that reason.”
Offcials say January and February animal control tends to see more of these injured eagles because of hunting season, breeding season, and the time eagles are hunting for their territory.
After catching one of these eagles, the department will then reach out to places like Blue Ridge or Virginia Wildlife Center to try and rehabilitate then release them. Unfortunately, the lead toxicity has been so bad some have had to be euthanized.
