It's a common pattern during hunting season in the winter: Hunters shoot elk or deer, then eagles scavenge the waste.
"The role of that lead is probably greater for these golden eagle populations, just because these populations are so much smaller and they're in a more precarious situation," Katzner said.Scientists have known about lead exposure in eagles for several decades.
But until Thursday's study, researchers hadn't been able to quantify how dangerous or widespread lead exposure was among US eagles."We got samples from Alaska down to Florida, from Maine to California, so we really had this wide sample size that is reflective of this nationwide pattern that we're seeing in these birds," Vince Slabe, a research wildlife biologist at the nonprofit Conservation Science Global and a co-author of the study, told Insider.
"In the winter season, these animals become less abundant for both [eagle] species and their feeding habits change," Slabe said, adding,"They start scavenging a lot more." The researchers also ruled out the possibility that eagles had been exposed by getting shot themselves.
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