Traveling rural roads in Virginia, it’s not unusual to spot a bald eagle surrounded by vultures devouring roadkill.
As hunting season begins, bald eagles will head into the woods to scavenge on the remains of deer, hunters leave after field-dressing them. But remnants of lead ammunition are sometimes part of that meal and will eventually kill many of these eagles.
Just outside the tribal lodge at the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge, a group of about 75 eagle enthusiasts are gathered in a misty rain. They eagerly wait for the release of two young bald eagles. One found in Henrico County had a broken shoulder bone and the other from Richmond County may have fledged too soon and was sick.
Given the thumbs up by a team of veterinarians, they were driven for three hours in dog crates. To keep them calm, the crates were covered and no one talked.
As the cover is lifted and the door of the first crate is opened, for a moment there’s only the scuttle of talons and the flapping of six-foot wings.
Then quiet is broken, as a woman cheers the flight of the birds.
It’s a bittersweet scene repeated throughout the state every year as more
injured eagles are brought to the Wildlife Center of Virginia.
"The eagle population is very healthy," says Connor Gillespie, the center's director of outreach. "So, we have a lot of nesting pairs of eagles here in Virginia, but that doesn't mean that they're not facing new challenges. And we are seeing a lot of them come to our hospital. One of the big reasons we're seeing them is lead. Almost all of the eagles that we admit at the wildlife center have some level of lead in their system, whether it's a small amount that's causing some incoordination or high levels of lead that cause more severe neurologic impacts for those eagles."
Lead poisoning leads to eagle injuries such as being unable to fly to hunt or to react quickly leading to being hit by cars and trucks.
"Over the past several years in particular, we've seen an increase in the number of eagles. Several years ago, we admitted 66 in one year, which was record breaking for us. And this year, we've already admitted more than 50."
Of those 50, only eleven have survived. The majority had lead poisoning.
"The primary source is from lead ammunition," Gillespie says. "Lead ammunition fragments on impact into hundreds and hundreds of small pieces. All it takes to kill an adult bald eagle is a piece of lead that's the size of a grain of rice. If it ingests that and it's in its body, that's enough of that lead to poison it and kill it."
And it’s not just eagles, it’s owls, hawks, reptiles and people. So, there’s a big effort to educate hunters.
"Hunters are some of the strongest proponents of wildlife conservation out there. So, our goal isn't to vilify them. It's more to educate those that do use lead ammunition about the harmful impacts and encouraging them to switch to copper-based ammunition. So, we're trying to bring them to the table and make sure that we're all in this together to help protect wildlife," Gillespie says.
The two eagles released this day tested negative for lead.
After the release, Mary Wenz, a volunteer wildlife rescuer trained by the center, is taking photos of the eagle she rescued in May in Richmond County. It’s perched high up in a tree at the edge of the woods.
"Got a call that there was a jogger out and had seen what we thought was a nestling bald eagle on the ground," Wenz recounts. "We searched the woods for about maybe an hour looking around for her. But then we did find her. But she was really lethargic, very, very weak. Got her immediately to transport, I know she needed fluids. When she left my house, she was flat on her tummy and couldn't even lift her leg."
"Oh, there she goes. There she goes," Wenz exclaims as she spots the bird now in the wild. "Off she goes. Goodbye baby. I love that. That makes me so happy. It makes me kind of feel like I'm going to cry."
The refuge already requires non-lead shot for turkey and small game hunting as well as non-lead sinkers and lures for fishing. By 2026, all hunting activities on the Refuge will require non-lead ammunition.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.