The College of Veterinary Medicine’s Wildlife Care Clinic and Save Our Avian Resources successfully released two rehabilitated eagles on Saturday at McFarland Park in Ames.

“The release was really successful and went without any hitches,” said Tasia Nielsen, head staff member at the Wildlife Care Clinic and senior in animal science.

The Wildlife Care Clinic is a non-profit organization whose primary mission is to provide medical attention, rehabilitation and facilities for injured or orphaned wildlife, according to their website. They also educate the public on the importance of native wildlife and environment, specifically Iowa’s and the Midwest’s.

Save Our Avian Resources is a non-profit organization based out of Dedham, Iowa, whose primary mission is to save our avian resources through raptor rehabilitation, education and research.

Nielsen said that there was a great turnout of roughly 200 people.

“It was our first big public release. Usually there are only about eight to 10 people there, who are associated with the clinic” Nielsen said.

The program started off with storyteller Mike Havlik from the Des Moines YMCA telling a story about lead and talking about lead poisoning cases.

Then, Kay Neumann, executive director of Save Our Avian Resources, and Nielsen told the stories of the two eagles, one male and one female.

The male eagle, Nielsen said, came to the Wildlife Care Clinic on Feb. 19. He came with two other eagles, one was dead upon arrival, and the third did not survive. All three eagles had lead poisoning.

“We kept him for about four or five days until he was in stable condition, and could stand and eat. Then we transferred him to SOAR where they had flight pens,” Nielsen said.

The four year old female eagle was rehabilitated at the clinic.

“We got her from Dickinson County, and she had lead poisoning. She was very sick, couldn’t keep down anything. She had to go through three weeks of therapy,” Neumann said.

The eagles were banded before the release to make it easier to track and keep track of them.

“Hopefully, though, we won’t hear about them again for a while,” Neumann said.

Dr. Bianca Zaffarano, the supervising veterinarian for the Wildlife Care Clinic, then introduced Dr. Lisa Nolan, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, and Sharron Quisenberry, vice president of research and economic development, who both got to release the eagles.

Educating the audience about lead poisoning was the “central theme,” Nielsen said.

“Lead does really nasty, horrible things to raptors. It interferes with their red blood cell count and prevents them from getting enough oxygen,” Neumann said. 

Neumann said that, since September, there have been 20 cases of eagles with lead poisoning in western Iowa. Only four of them are still alive today.

“We’ve been doing lead poisoning research and have a database of over 200 eagles that had lead poisoning when tested. Over 60 percent of those were from ingestion of lead, and most of those were because of lead slugs hunters use,” Neumann said.

Neumann explained there is non-toxic ammunition, which is made with a mixture of metals such as iron, copper and tungsten, and that 60 percent of the birds in the database would not have gotten sick if hunters used the non-toxic ammunition.

“It’s just so sad because it’s completely preventable,” she said. “We see lots of accidents happen to birds that we can’t do much about, but we can prevent this. And most birds who get lead poisoning don’t survive.”

Nielsen said about 99 percent of the raptors they get at the Wildlife Care Clinic are hit by cars. However, they had more poisoned eagles this year than usual.

“We usually only have one or two, but this year we’ve had five or six already. We had one come in just last week with high levels of lead and weren’t able to save it. It’s just becoming an increasing problem,” she said.

Though there are many difficult times in the jobs of wildlife rehabilitators, releases like this one make it all worthwhile.

“It’s the best feeling ever. Your heart flutters because you got to save these animals, and now they’re going to be free again. I think everyone in the audience felt a similar feeling,” Nielsen said.

Neumann agreed: “It was a good day. Releases are such great rewards for rehabilitators. It’s so exciting to see birds make it.”