Posted on 02/22/2010 2:43:16 PM PST by Daffynition
Forced to find other food sources this winter, hundreds of resourceful bald eagles have traded their favored diet of fish for the other white meat. Contrary to their scavenging nature, hungry eagles are stealing live baby pigs from at least one Iowa farm.
Eagle-watchers have noticed dramatically lower numbers of the majestic birds along the Mississippi River this winter. Normally, scores, even hundreds, of the voracious raptors can be seen circling open water below the river's dams, plucking out dead gizzard shad to munch on.
But there are hardly any dead shad bobbing on the surface this winter. There still are plenty of the smallish, silver fish alive in the river, out of the eagles' reach. For some reason, their normal seasonal die-off for the shad did not happen this winter.
"The shad are full of oil so they float to the surface when they die, where they are easy pickings for the eagles and usually a big percent of them die off every year," said Mel Bowler, an Iowa state fish biologist in Bellevue. "But without shad, which is 90 percent of eagles' diets, they had to change their feeding strategies."
So starving eagles moved inland, scrounging meals where they could. Bowler and other outdoor enthusiasts report seeing large numbers of eagles in timber stands and fields, feeding on wildlife carcasses.
They sometimes gather around farmsteads where farmers toss out dead livestock, but most smaller farm animals are housed indoors.
Except for operations like Becker Lane Organic Farm near Dyersville, Iowa, where Jude Becker raises specialized Berkshire pigs as naturally as possible. So those pigs wander in large pastures and give birth in individual steel "huts" where they build simple straw nests for their broods.
Becker and his workers started seeing eagles hanging around in November. More showed up each week. Then piglets started disappearing, about a half dozen each week. No one suspected the eagles, which are not known to go after live prey, until they witnessed it. Farm manager Jamie Sheridan described the scene that he has seen now four times.
"It's a nice day, so the little pigs wander out of the huts to play. There will be a runt or smaller pigs in most litters and that's who the eagles seem to go after," Sheridan said. "They dive down and grab the piglet by the back and sort of crush it with their talons so it starts screaming. The sow comes out to chase the eagle away, but it carries the baby a little ways off and eats it."
The spacious pasture is too big to be constantly patrolled. The eagles are federally protected, so even if he wanted to, Becker could not shoot them. But each little piggy that eventually goes to market at about 300 pounds can fetch $600 to $700.
"We're just hoping that come spring, the eagles will disperse and go other places for food," Becker said.
It's highly unusual for eagles to kill live prey, said Kelly McKay, of Hampton, Ill., who studies and counts them for various agencies.
"In all my studies, I've never heard or read about them ever taking live prey. Dead animals are much easier for them to eat," said McKay, owner of BioEco Research and Monitoring Center.
Jamie Sheridan, farm manager for Becker Lane Organic Farm in Dyersville, Iowa, holds up one of the piglets that he says bald eagles have been targeting. The piglet weighs around 6 pounds
Bush’s fault!
Release the cats!
Eagles eating piglets?
Meghan McCain better look out.
Pork and fish hmmmm... Must be Southern Bald Eagles! ;-)
That’s another way for pigs to fly.
Bush would have commandeered them to make drops over Tehran. ;)
Now that’s a picture; I’ve hunted wild boar, and cannot understate how tough and vicious these animals are.
“In all my studies, I’ve never heard or read about them ever taking live prey. Dead animals are much easier for them to eat,” said McKay, owner of BioEco Research and Monitoring Center.
Cute! I suppose McKay thought those Bald Eagles weren’t really eagle - merely vultures with white heads?
Uhhh - and what about those long, sharp talons?
One of those ‘Circle of Life’ kind of things.
HAHAHA! You’re B-A-D! HAHAHA!
There’s been an unusually large number of bald eagles along the Iowa River this year. I actually joked with a friend about the river being “infested” with a “plague” of eagles. It was the most majestic infestation I’ve ever seen.
This is one of my favorite Eagle videos, golden eagles killing and feeding on full grown mountain goats. What an awesome predator.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XafAdkZIYKA
So, an organic farmer complains because the DOMESTIC pigs he’s raising without the normal protections they require are being picked off by an eagle doing what eagles do. This idiot organic farmer should realize that domestic pigs are not wild animals that can fend for themselves in the wild, though they will quickly become feral. ...but feral pigs are not farm animals.
Second, eagles don’t catch live prey? Tell that to the fish flapping in their talons. Maybe they only eat the dead shad in that area of Iowa because they are easy food, but eagles will catch live fish right out of the water when they need to.
Lock up your dachshunds as well.
http://www.dailydachshundanddognews.com/2009/09/fierce-dachshund-saves-terrier-buddy.html
What? you want to feed the Eagles cats instead of pigs? That seems kind of cruel to the cats
Cruel to the eagles.
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