Saving Our Avian Resources, SOAR is a 501(c)(3) organization established in 1999 dedicated to saving our avian resources through raptor rehabilitation, education, and research. SOAR maintains all necessary US Fish & Wildlife Service and Iowa DNR permits to provide the rehabilitation and education.
Our Goals
Establish a regional raptor rehabilitation facility to serve western Iowa.
Use personal connections with individual, wild animals to bring attention to important natural resource conservation projects and issues.
Conserve habitat, conduct needed research, and provide educational opportunities.
CDC lowers lead poisoning guidelines
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has accepted the recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention to cut in half the definition for lead poisoning in children.
This panel voted on 4 January to make recommendation to the Centers for Disease Control to lower the definition of lead poisoning for children from 10 µg/dL to 5 µg/dL.
Central Iowa radio station daily poll about lead shot
KNIA / KRLS Radio Station in Knoxville / Pella, Iowa has a daily viewer poll. Below is the poll and restults from May 15.
Governor Branstad has overruled his appointees to the Iowa Natural Resources Commission, determining that leadf shot can be used in dove hunting. Is the use of lead shot a good idea?
No, lead shot should be banned (71%, 115 votes)
Yes, lead shot is OK (29%, 47 votes)
Total voters: 162
Solon man pleads guilty to illegal trapping of raptors
Iowa DNR News Release
SOLON - A Solon man has had his hunting, fishing and trapping privileges revoked for the next six years after pleading guilty to multiple counts of trapping violations including trapping raptors.
Ronald Roy Hanus, 46, pled guilty to 14 counts including three counts of trapping and killing three red-tailed hawks, three counts of attempted take of raptors, three counts of trapping with exposed bait, four counts of failing to tag traps and one count of trapping furbearing animals without a fur harvester’s license.
After pleading guilty, Hanus was ordered to pay a total of $2,050 in liquidated damages and fine in addition to having his hunting, fishing and trapping privileges revoked.
During an eight month long investigation in Tama County, DNR Conservation Officer Brent Reese documented Hanus’s attempted illegal take and actual illegal killing of raptors. The method Hanus used in trapping raptors consisted of a set leg-hold trap stapled to the top of the fence post, which was designed to catch a perching raptor by the foot as it landed atop the post. Hanus illegally used the aid of bait, visible to soaring raptors, placed in close proximity to the trap to lure raptors to the trap. Reece was able to document numerous trapping violations committed by Hanus over the course of this investigation.
The eight month investigation culminated when Reece and Conservation Officer Ericka Billerbeck interviewed Hanus on December 18 and 19, 2011. During those interviews, Hanus admitted to illegally trapping and killing nine Red-tailed hawks over the course of the preceding two years on his parent’s property in Tama County. Hanus admitted to illegally using exposed bait visible to soaring raptors to lure raptors to his trap, failing to tag his traps with a metal tag containing his name and address and that during the 2011-12 fur-bearer trapping season, he trapped fur-bearing animals while not being in possession of a fur-harvester’s license.
Eagle data
Iowa wildlife rehabilitators are collecting data on all admitted eagles (alive and DOA). These facilities include: Black Hawk Wildlife Rehabilitation Project, MacBride Raptor Project, SOAR, and the Wildlife Care Clinic. Between September 1, 2011 and April 15, 2012:
44 eagles admitted
34 of these were lead exposure or poisoning cases as revealed through blood, liver, or bone testing
28 of the 34 have died
So without lead in the system – we would only have admitted 10 eagles in that same time frame.
Plus one Cooper's hawk with a #7.5 piece of lead shot in her digestive tract – also died from lead poisoning in that time frame.
Diagnosis in on eagles rescued from landfill, Northern Wisconsin
The Raptor Education Group was called to the scene of seven eagles in distress at a landfill near Eagle River, WI. Read the blog post about the release from June 2011.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel provided coverage of the events surrounding these eagles.
Loess Hills Prairie Seminar
Information about the 2012 Loess Hills Prairie Seminar is now available in the Programs and Services section of the Northwest Area Eeducation Agency website.
The information on the website includes: the detailed program listing the activities that are available for adults, children and families; a list of the facilitators; information about the Silent Auction; a list of our generous sponsors; a letter for K-12 educators explaining the option for License Renewal Credit, which is being offered at a discounted rate; and much more information. Registration deadline is May 25.
Eagles in print!
A new non-fiction book about the now famous Decorah eagles "Decorah Eagles: A Love Story" by Susan Crouse Schneider with Pete Wachsberger and Darci Thelaner is available from Friesen Press.
Take Action - Watch this!
Girl Scouts help raise awareness of the dangers of lead to eagles. The girls encourage hunters to "get the lead out" to help save eagles from accidental poisoning. Includes video clips from the Decorah, Iowa eagle cam and photos from this site. Great job, Scouts!
A bit more about lead poisoning...
The bald eagle admitted on 13 December that had been caught in a leg-hold trap also had elevated blood lead levels (BLL) of 9.6 µg/dL. She coughed up a pellet (accumulated undigested material, in the case of eagles primarily hair) shortly after initial exam at SOAR. This pellet was x-rayed for lead fragments. The bright white flecks are lead fragments that weren't dissolved and absorbed into her blood stream.
The leg-hold traps were set near a deer carcass. Had she not been caught in the trap and found, it is likely she would've continued to eat off this deer carcass and ingest more lead.
A 1997 University of Minnesota Raptor Center retrospective study concluded that spent lead ammunition is an important source of lead exposure for bald eagles.
Since 2004, SOAR has been compiling statewide eagle data that now includes over 180 eagles. All of these eagles had either a BLL taken or the lead level was determined post-mortem via liver biopsy. Over half of these eagles had abnormal lead levels in blood, liver, or bone. This is a much higher percentage than the random types of injuries, seen in other species.
In a 2008 paper presented at the Peregrine Fund's Spent Ammunition Conference, SOAR Executive Director Kay Neumann noted, "...more random events seem to occur at a much lower percentage of the total number of eagles admitted. Gunshot wounds, for example, were recorded in ten of the 82 [those in the database up to the submission of the paper] eagles in this database (12.2%). The data does not indicate that the increasing number of bald eagles being admitted by Iowa wildlife rehabilitators is simply a function of the increasing numbers of eagles in wild populations. If this were the case, it would be expected that a variety of causes would be seen for admittance (miscellaneous trauma, fractures, starvation, disease, etc.), at percentages relative to that seen for gunshot wounds. This has been the case for other species."
For instance, the Cooper's hawk (see photo at right) population has rebounded from DDT exposure and have also increased numbers by discovering a new niche -- Cooper's hawks are now nesting in town. As would be expected, a higher population means that more birds will be seen by rehabilitators. In the last 4-5 years, there has been an increase in Cooper's hawks being admitted to rehabilitators across the country with a random assortment of injuries, not just one.
As reported in the 14 December issue of the North Iowa Times, "Dr. Julie Ponder of the Raptor Center at the University of Minnesota sees about 100 eagles per year. The Raptor Center is one of the premiere raptor treatment and research facilities in the country. All receive blood testing for lead, as well as an x-ray. She said that 95 percent of the birds show some lead exposure, and 25-30 percent have lead poisoning. That’s a pretty significant number."
Lead poisoning affects eagles more than other raptors. Thousands of bald eagles winter in Iowa -- estimates of up to one-fifth of the lower 48 states' eagle population -- congregate near open water along the big rivers and reservoirs in the state. Other scavengers like turkey vultures have migrated south. Hawks tend to hunt more than scavenge and an eagle will chase off hawks feeding on a carcass.
Iowa has deer hunting seasons for hunters from September (for youth hunts) through January (extended doe season). The extended hunting seasons mean an increased opportunity for deer carcasses to be available at a time when thousands of eagles are in Iowa.
"This is a problem that we can solve," Dr. Laura Johnson, a veterinarian and a licensed wildlife rehabilitator at Tender Care Animal Hospital in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, said in an interview with the North Iowa Times. "We want people to know that they can change the kind of ammunition they use," she added.
The bald eagle admitted on 13 December that had been caught in a leg-hold trap also had elevated blood lead levels (BLL) of 9.6 µg/dL. She coughed up a pellet (accumulated undigested material, in the case of eagles primarily hair) shortly after initial exam at SOAR. This pellet was x-rayed for lead fragments. The bright white flecks are lead fragments that weren't dissolved and absorbed into her blood stream. 
A 1997 University of Minnesota Raptor Center retrospective study concluded that spent lead ammunition is an important source of lead exposure for bald eagles.