Eagle car accidents are not rare in UP| News, sports, jobs

Christy Sitar, a wildlife biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, holds an injured bald eagle in her arms. The bird, which was struck by a vehicle on the Schoolcraft-Luce County border, was transported to a wildlife rehabilitation center. (Photo courtesy of MDNR)

(In recent days) Along a snow-covered highway near the Schoolcraft-Luce County line, Michigan Natural Resources Conservation Officer Jason Roth pulled his car to the side of the road.

DNR wildlife biologist Christy Sitar got there in her truck as well.

Sometime over the past few days, a white-tailed deer was struck and killed by a vehicle passing through the area. Crows, crows and at least one bald eagle found the carcass and began collecting meat from the road.

At some point, as a speeding vehicle or vehicles passed, the adult eagle emerged from the carcass and attempted to fly away — likely to a branch in a nearby tree where it could overlook the scene.

But the massive bird, with a wingspan of about 7 feet, was unable to reach enough altitude on takeoff before it also hit traffic and fell to the side of the road with the force of the impact.

Sitar and Roth are now trying to recover the injured bird in hopes of transporting it to an avian rehabilitation facility.

Slowly, but deliberately, Sitar approached the eagle that had fallen in the snow just off the highway. She was able to catch the bird in her hands.

She and Ruth wrapped a tarp around the eagle for the safety of the bird and its would-be rescuers. The eagle was transported to the Skegemog Raptor Center in Traverse City to be further evaluated and treated.

Sitar said the outlook for recovery was not good.

She added that the eagle is receiving treatment, and it is possible for it to recover, but the chance is very slim due to its severe paralysis.

Metal bands are shown attached to the yellow legs of an injured bald eagle.

The eagle was identified as a female who was wearing metal bands on her leg indicating she had been bound when she was young 20 years ago.

Unfortunately, incidents and consequences of vulture collisions with vehicles are not as rare as one might hope especially along highways with higher speed limits, where roadkill and litter vultures occur more often.

Crows can get out of the way easily, but eagles are much larger, and it often takes them five or more strikes to get out of the way of oncoming traffic, and since they are large and need a lot of space, they fly into the open area above the road to do so, Sitar said. The chances of birds fully recovering from this type of accident are very slim, so we really want to avoid collisions with them.

According to the World Population Review website, Michigan is home to about 800 pairs of bald eagles, ranking seventh among US states, behind Alaska (30,000 pairs), Minnesota (9,800), Florida (1,500), Wisconsin (1,500), and Virginia (1,100). and Washington (900).

In all, the United States has about 55,630 breeding pairs. Rhode Island, Utah, and New Mexico each have fewer than 10 pairs.

Among North America’s large raptors, only golden eagles and California condors have larger wingspans than bald eagles.

A study of golden eagle collisions with vehicles at highway kill sites in Wyoming indicated several factors influence a higher number of eagle collisions with vehicles in the fall and winter.

An adult bald eagle is seen flying from a branch against a clear blue sky in Marquette County.

Vehicle collisions are a frequent source of golden eagle mortality causing an estimated annual mortality rate of 1% in the western United States. Much of the mortality and mitigation opportunities occur in the fall and winter when typical eagle prey is hibernating or less available, which may increase foraging by vultures, said the paper Modeling Golden Eagle Collisions with Vehicles to Design Mitigation Strategies.

Meanwhile, the kill rate of ungulates (hoofed mammals) usually peaks in winter, and cold temperatures make it easier for carcasses to survive longer. Together, these factors increase the likelihood of golden eagle collisions with vehicles in the fall and winter…

Another research study, titled Use of the Golden Eagle for Winter Roadkill and Response to Vehicles in the Western United States, said vehicle collisions are a significant source of wildlife mortality worldwide, but less attention has been paid to secondary mortality of roadside scavengers, such as the golden eagle. .

Initial fatalities point to the original vehicle collision with a white-tailed deer, for example. Secondary mortality is the death of the eagle at road kill sites.

In the study, researchers sought to measure golden eagle winter use of road-kill mammalian carcasses and the flushing of vultures from vehicles in Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming, as proxies for strike risk, using motion-sensitive cameras.

They monitored 160 carcasses and captured 2,146 eagle-vehicular interactions in 58 carcasses (from one to 240 observations per carcass) during the winters of 2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019.

The researchers discovered that road distance is the easiest factor to manipulate.

With the dual benefits of increased food availability for golden eagles and reduced risk of influx-related vehicle strikes.

A technician looks inside the beak of a dead bald eagle during a laboratory examination.

“We recommend moving at least 12 meters (40 feet) from the road to increase eagle use and reduce water flow by four-fold compared to behavior observed at the edge of the road.” Read the study. “Because roadkill cleanup is thought to be the primary cause of eagle vehicle strikes, informed roadkill management has the potential to reduce human-caused golden eagles mortality.”

It stands to reason that the same logic applies to bald eagles.

Sitar said the DNR tries to safely pull the deer carcasses off the road to help avoid injury to the vultures when they feed on roadkilled deer.

DNR wildlife biologists suggest slowing down when approaching an area where road scavengers are feeding.

If you accidentally hit an eagle with your vehicle, or see one, report it to your local DNR office as soon as possible. For incidents that occur after business hours, call or text the DNR’s All Poaching Hotline at 1-800-292-7800.

The earlier an injured bird can recover, the more effective the help will be.

A conservation letter published in the journal Raptor Research earlier this year stated that interactions of raptors (birds of prey) with human-modified landscapes, including structures and infrastructure systems such as highways, have the potential to negatively impact individual birds. Populations and species. Often in the form of collisions with man-made structures and vehicles.

Many raptors are attracted to built environments because of the high availability of prey, carrion, roosts and new nest sites, yet living in such environments puts raptors at risk of collisions, according to the letter. Birds of prey are vulnerable to collisions with fixed and moving man-made objects, which often result in traumatic injuries or death. Globally, collisions are consistently reported to be among the main reasons for admission of birds of prey to rehabilitation centres.

An immature bald eagle is examined in the laboratory to determine the cause of death.

These admission records represent only a small fraction of all raptor collisions, many of which occur in places with limited access, the letter said. Birds of prey found dead often go unreported.

Multiple collision hazards pose threats to birds of prey in both urban and rural areas, although some are better studied than others, the letter’s authors stated. Most studies of raptor collisions focus on vehicles and wind turbines, or to a lesser extent, windows and buildings. Many other collision hazards in built environments remain understudied, such as aircraft, overhead power lines, communications towers, and fences.

Vehicle collisions with headlight-blinded nocturnal owls represent a major threat to wild populations and a leading cause of owl mortality, according to the letter.

Last month, a barred owl that flew in front of a car and collided along a city street in the early morning darkness was brought to the DNR Customer Service Center in Marquette. The bird was released later that day, and after resting in a pine tree for a few hours, it flew away.

The conservation letter said that collisions between predatory vehicles depend on many factors including:

≥ Traffic volume and prey availability.

≥ Speed ​​limits, road width and surrounding landscape.

≥ Vehicle collisions affect raptors in urban and suburban areas, suggesting that patterns likely vary across species and landscapes.

Human-related mortality is a major limiting factor for some raptor populations, with human-caused raptor mortality on the rise over the past century.

– Birds of prey that collide with vehicles face higher mortality rates than those affected by other human-generated factors.

Of the 15 raptor species in the UK, vehicle collisions were the cause of death for 28% of banded birds recovered between 2002 and 2019, the letter said. Likewise, approximately 11% of raptor range recoveries in the USA from the 1920s to 2000s were due to vehicle collisions, a proportion that has increased significantly over time.

In the afternoon, after Ruth and Sitar retrieved a female bald eagle from the snow along the highway, another eagle-vehicle collision was reported.

This was from neighboring Mackinac County, near Gould City, along U.S. Highway 2 near the shore of Lake Michigan, another highway with a 65 mph speed limit.

“That’s two in two days,” Sitar said.

In this case, Sitar recovered the adult eagle, but it died.

The eagle will be shipped to the DNR’s pathology laboratory in East Lansing for examination and then shipped to the National Eagle Repository in Colorado for redistribution to Native American tribes.

It is illegal for any individual to own a bald or golden wolf

The eagle, including its parts (feathers, feet, etc.). The distribution of bald and golden eagles and their parts to Native Americans is permitted under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and provisions of the Code of Federal Regulations.

For hundreds of years, Native Americans and Alaska Natives have used eagle feathers for religious and cultural purposes. In recognition of the importance of these feathers to Native Americans, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established the National Eagle Repository in the early 1970s.