Eagles sickened last month near an Inver Grove Heights landfill are recovering, with seven already released back into the wild — but exactly how they got sick remains a mystery.
What is known is that human behavior resulted in the deaths of at least two eagles and nearly killed 10 more, a University of Minnesota Raptor Center official said. The eagles were likely accidentally poisoned from eating carcasses of chemically euthanized animals improperly dumped in the landfill.
"The choices we make as humans can sometimes have unintended consequences," said Dana Franzen-Klein, the center's clinical wildlife and medical director. "When we learn, we can make changes that have a really big impact."
Raptor Center staff spent weeks providing round-the-clock care for 10 birds, delivering medication and fluids and keeping a close watch over the ferocious feathered patients.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is still investigating how the animals came to ingest pentobarbital, Franzen-Klein said. The eagles are believed to have eaten the carcasses of animals euthanized with the barbiturate from an Inver Grove Heights landfill around Dec. 2.
Inver Grove Heights police brought the first sick bird to the Raptor Center on Dec. 4. Volunteers found nine sick eagles in the snow around the landfill on Dec. 5, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife workers found another eagle on Dec. 6. Two more eagles were found dead that week, apparent victims of the pentobarbital.
When eagles eat the carcasses of animals euthanized with pentobarbital, Franzen-Klein said, they get dazed and sleepy. They can recover, she said, if they don't die in the sedated state.
The eagles were unable to fend for themselves for days, Franzen-Klein said. Those found in the snow needed help getting warm again. Several contracted pneumonia and needed two weeks of antibiotics. Three had severe lead poisoning and more had moderate lead poisoning, so they got medication to help clear the lead from their systems.