Bald eagles are dropping from the skies in Canada!
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada - March 2, 2011 - Bald eagles in the Comox Valley of British Columbia, Canada, are having a difficult time finding food these days. A recent report in The Province explains that the birds are literally starving and falling from the sky, adding to the string of strange animal events that has occurred in numerous places around the world in the past few months
"This is the most we have ever had," said Maj Birch, manager of the Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society, concerning the excessive number of starving and dying eagles the group has seen in recent days. "Many of them are downed before they are brought in. They are on the ground and they're too weak to fly away. Some of them are actually falling out of the sky."
According to reports, the center has taken in roughly 20 bald eagles since the beginning of the year, many of them severely malnourished, lacking body fat, laden with parasites, and generally in poor health. While a certain number of them normally end up in the center every year, the rate thus far in 2011 is abnormally high.
Bald eagles in the region typically feed on chum salmon, because the fish are rich in necessary oils and fats that help keep the birds sustained throughout the winter. But experts believe that poor stocks of chum salmon last year have left the birds without enough food this year, which has driven many of them to local landfills to scavenge through the trash.
"If they can't find carrion (meat), they go to the dump, and the problem with the dump... is you get a lot of poisoning," said Robin Campbell of North Island Wildlife Recovery Center in Errington, to The Province.
Experts say the lack of chum salmon is likely due to pollution and overfishing, as well as recent heavy rains that washed many of the dead salmon out to sea. But the precise reason for the salmon shortage and the rise in eagle starvation rates remains unclear.
