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Sergeant Logan Curfman with Preservation Parks of Delaware County kneels by the cage holding a soon to be free bald eagle. From L to R: Senator Beth Liston, Mary Van Haaften (Preservation Parks director), and Heather Tuttle (Ohio Wildlife Center director).
On March 24, Sgt. Logan Curfman, an officer with Preservation Parks of Delaware County, was on patrol when a citizen flagged him down. A sickly bald eagle was nearby, and in obvious need of help. Curfman and his partner, Officer Eric Tanner, managed to wrestle the big bird into a container. Their bulletproof vests served an unintended purpose.
Eagles have large, powerful talons, and this bird wasn’t so ill that it couldn’t put them to use. In addition to stopping bullets, the vests proved effective at preventing mauling by talon.
The Ohio Wildlife Center (OWC) was contacted, and the officers soon had the bird, our national symbol, in the hands of the rehab professionals at the center.
An examination revealed that the eagle was suffering from an acute case of lead poisoning. Amazing, lead is still used in some ammunitions and is common in fishing tackle. It is likely that the eagle ingested lead from bullet fragments in a white-tailed deer, or from fish that had swallowed tackle.
Bald eagles scavenge heavily on carrion such as dead deer, and fish are dietary staples. The American Eagle Foundation reports that up to 47% of bald eagles have some level of lead poisoning.
After nearly two months of chelation therapy, a process in which medications leach lead from the blood stream, the eagle was much improved. Tests in a flight cage showed the raptor could fly well, and that it could catch food. The bird also was blind in its left eye, but whatever caused that injury had occurred long prior to its rescue, and the eagle seemed to function perfectly, despite that handicap.
May 24 was a big day for the rehabilitated eagle. The OWC’s communications manager, David Donahue, had arranged for its release to take place at Deer Haven Park. He also invited interested parties, including this writer.
Once everyone had assembled, the star of the show was brought out in its cage, the door opened and, after a bit of hesitation, the big bird launched itself and winged eastward toward the Olentangy River. The accompanying photo shows the eagle taking its first post-treatment flight, and I can report that it showed no signs of weakness.
This eagle surely would have perished were it not for the hard work of Preservation Parks’ employees and the OWC. The latter is one of Ohio’s premier wildlife rehabilitation facilities and does tremendous public education and outreach work. I highly recommend a visit to its facilities at 6245 Clark Road near Powell.
While bald eagles are now flourishing, such was not always the case. By 1963, there were only 417 pairs known from the lower 48 states. Liberal use of the pesticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) was largely to blame. This toxin entered eagles via contaminated fish, and triggered a collapse of their reproductive systems, particular eggshell thinning.
This resulted in plummeting reproductive rates and an enormous decline in eagle numbers. In Ohio, breeding bald eagles had dropped to only four pairs in 1979, and again in 1983. On Nov. 5, 1968, Richard Milhous Nixon was elected president. Responding to overwhelming concern from the citizens of worsening environmental conditions, Nixon proposed the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on July 9, 1970.
After congressional review and approval, the EPA launched on Dec. 2, 1970. One of the first issues the fledging EPA set its sights on was the elimination of DDT. On Dec. 31, 1972, following some time to transition to less toxic pesticides, DDT was officially banned. DDT slowly disappeared from the environment, and adversely affected animals such as eagles began to rebound. Today, there are over 71,000 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the lower 48 states, and Alaska boasts over 100,000 eagles – by far the most of any state.
According to the Ohio Division of Wildlife, there are now over 1,000 eagle nests known in 87 of the 88 counties. Only Meigs County lacks a nest report. But even there, a nest occurs a stone’s throw from the county line, on a West Virginia island in the Ohio River.
Delaware County, where officers Curfman and Tanner rescued the protagonist of this column, hosts 16 nests. Franklin County supports six nests. The motherlode is the western Lake Erie marsh region, where one is seemingly never out of sight of an eagle nest.
The return of the bald eagle is a modern-day environmental success story, and kudos to Preservation Parks, the Ohio Wildlife Center and officers Curfman and Tanner for ensuring that one more bald eagle graces our skies.
I should note that this eagle was found near the aptly named Eagle Ridge Park, a new Preservation Parks site that will officially open this fall.
Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.
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A bald eagle is released by the Ohio Wildlife Center in Deer Haven Park. L to R: Kristen McFarland, reporter with WBNS 10TV, Melissa Muth, chair of the OWC board, Senator Beth Liston, Heather Tuttle and (barely visible) Logan Curfman/Jim McCormac
