Bald eagle deaths in Utah alarm and mystify scientists

December 30, 2013 – UTAH - Bald eagles are dying in Utah – 20 in the past few weeks alone – and nobody can figure out why. Hundreds of the majestic birds – many with wing spans of 7 feet or more – migrate here each winter, gathering along the Great Salt Lake and feasting on carp and other fish that swim in the nearby freshwater bays.
Earlier this month, however, hunters and farmers across five counties in northern and central Utah began finding the normally skittish raptors lying listless on the ground. Many suffered from seizures, head tremors and paralysis in the legs, feet and wings.
Many of the eagles were brought to the mammoth Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah, where Buz Marthaler – a longtime animal caretaker – and other handlers tried to save the birds. Within 48 hours most were dead.
“It’s just hard to have your national bird in your arms, going through seizures in a way it can’t control – when you can see it’s pain but don’t know what’s happening to it,” said Marthaler, 56, co-founder of the facility in Ogden. “As a human being, you just have problems with that. And when you lose one, it just grabs your heart.” State wildlife specialists are also baffled. For weeks, officials have sent birds for necropsies at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., hoping the results would offer clues.

theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com...


The officials know that the Eagles were not shot nor do they believe that they poisioned

At first, the agency’s disease scientists guessed that the illness could be encephalitis, which is caused by the West Nile virus, but later ruled out that possibility. And although many sick eagles tested positive for lead, researchers did not think that it was killing the birds.
Officials suggest the eagle die-off is possibly connected to the deaths of thousands of eared grebes that began in Utah in November.


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Birds navigate by magnetic fields. Could be something to do with the sun doing its polar reversal?
I can only speculate.

Having been a bird raiser for years, the symptoms are a perfect match for lead poisoning.
If it's not lead poisoning, I'd say they have a new disease on their hands.

reply to post by nugget1

nugget1
Having been a bird raiser for years, the symptoms are a perfect match for lead poisoning.
If it's not lead poisoning, I'd say they have a new disease on their hands.

They did find lead in them but not enough to cause the deaths.



What may be of concern is what some may think about Fukishima

Officials at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center have their own theories about the sickness. Some point to radiation from Japan after the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. "We aren't ruling out anything," Marthaler said. A call from Idaho shed new light: A wildlife official said bald eagles there were also getting sick, suggesting that the birds were arriving in Utah already in bad health.

Could be some of their food sources could be contaminated, which in turn affect the Eagles
Just a theory

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