Golden eagle feasting on gut pile

[bisonic]

I put a game camera on the gut pile of a hog I got a few weeks ago - heres a good up-close video of a golden eagle feasting (date stamp is wrong). I've done this a few times and it's always the golden eagles that are the first ones to spot the gut pile even though my dressing area is under tall oaks. I rarely see coyotes on the pile - besides eagles it's crows, buzzards, and other hogs that do the cleanup.

No hogs yesterday, though I got close. I was on a ridge and walked over to a point to glass the valley and heard several hogs snorting in the brush very close by, seemed no more than 50 feet or less. I tossed some rocks into the brush and heard them head down the hillside, then saw a herd of a half dozen or so pop out in the valley below. It was too thick for me to follow, and no luck trying to head them off. It was the same herd of oreo striped ones that I'd come across a couple weeks ago when I shot the one that provided the gut pile for the video above.

Here's an earlier video in the same spot:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjym71fCwr8

 

[dustin ray]

Thats cool thank for shareing

 

[nickman123]

If eating gut piles gives the Condors lead poisoning, why doesn't it seem to bother any of the other scavengers like eagles, crows, coyotes, etc..?? Are they immune to lead?

 

[dthome]

If eating gut piles gives the Condors lead poisoning, why doesn't it seem to bother any of the other scavengers like eagles, crows, coyotes, etc..?? Are they immune to lead?

It effects other animals, too.

 

[THE ROMAN ARCHER]

That’s absolutely cool vid thanx for sharing! some good rooting in that area.....tra

 

[Planetcat]

If eating gut piles gives the Condors lead poisoning, why doesn't it seem to bother any of the other scavengers like eagles, crows, coyotes, etc..?? Are they immune to lead?

It effects other animals, too.

the other animals are smarter and know to spit out a big hard chunk of metal when they bite into it. Im kidding of course.

 

[jindydiver]

I've done this a few times and it's always the golden eagles that are the first ones to spot the gut pile even though my dressing area is under tall oaks. I rarely see coyotes on the pile - besides eagles it's crows, buzzards, and other hogs that do the cleanup.

G'day

We see the same thing here in Oz with our wedgetail eagle (a cousin of the golden eagle). We have seen them take fallow deer fawns and anything smaller is fair game for them but they love the easy meal. And they find it no matter where it is. It became clearer to me why this might be after watching a David Attenborough documentary where he buried a steak under some leaves in a forest and the birds were there and on to it in no time flat. He explained that the buzzard in the show have an incredible sense of smell and use it to find carrion, and I assume the eagles have something good going on there too.

If eating gut piles gives the Condors lead poisoning, why doesn't it seem to bother any of the other scavengers like eagles, crows, coyotes, etc..?? Are they immune to lead?

All birds are affected by lead poisoning if they eat lead pieces. The issue for the condors is that they take so long before having their first breeding season that they can be fatally effected before they get to breed. Also they do not breed every season, and when they do it is only one egg, so they are sensitive to reductions in their number through whatever cause.