Bald eagle shot, killed in Manatee County
By ANTHONY CORMIER
anthony.cormier@heraldtribune.com
EAST MANATEE -- Every so often, they went to the little patch of pasture on Lena Road, land owned by a dairy farmer and the home of an American bald eagle and her mate.
Tony and Paula Brown came to this spot for the better part of 18 months, looking for these particular birds who seemed content to live in a pine tree not far from the county dump.
But it was only in the past few weeks, when they noticed eggs in the nest, that the Browns realized the birds were about to have babies. Mother eagle stayed in the bushy nest, 100 yards or so from the road, 25 feet up in the pine tree, only days away from the hatching of her eaglets.
So the Browns came by more often, Tony Brown says, because they did not want to miss the births. Every so often became just about every day, until Sunday when the mother seemed mysteriously still in her nest.
Her mate was gone, and so were the other eagles, sometimes as many as 12, who lived in the same vicinity.
"Something's not right," he said.
Brown called a friend from the Audubon Society of Florida, which organizes observers to keep watch on eagle nests in Manatee and Sarasota counties.
When Dale Nauman got there Sunday afternoon, the eagle had not moved. The bird was dead.
The next morning, Nauman called a buddy who runs a tree-trimming business, borrowed a cherry-picker and got Roger Musgrave, the dairy farmer who owns the land and has always been friendly with the eagle watchers, to open the gate.
Nauman plucked the eagle from the nest and saw a gaping hole in the bird's chest. A veterinarian in Nokomis, he said, examined the animal and found its chest plate shattered, and an exit wound in the back.
"Somebody shot it," he said. "There's no doubt. Probably had to be a rifle, because we didn't find any buckshot in the nest or on the bird. Just the wound in the front, and another in the back."
A local law enforcement official said the carcass has been sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which will investigate.
It is a crime to kill or disturb an American bald eagle, removed this year from the endangered species list but still protected by federal and state laws.
While killings are rare -- the last known case in this region was in 2002 in Myakka City -- many are difficult to prove, said Gary Morse, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Sometimes, the shootings are accidental, such as cases when farmers or hunters mistake an eagle for a hawk. Also, investigations can be complicated by the wounds; defense lawyers have argued that the birds were not hurt by a bullet, but by a falling tree limb or a violent fall.
"Sometimes they can impale themselves trying to get prey," Morse said. "But, obviously, if a vet discovered that this animal was shot, it's something that law enforcement is going to be very interested in."
For now, the killing is a mystery.
The nest is not far from Lena Road, traveled heavily by trucks on their way to Manatee County's landfill, and Brown and Nauman speculated that the shooter could have fired a round from the street.
But with only about 60 eagles in Manatee and Sarasota counties, Brown wonders why anyone would hurt the birds -- especially the pair that he and his wife had become so close to.
Tony Brown is retired, after decades working in the Sears car shop. He is sick, with a heart problem that slows him down.
But he and Paula had hoped to watch their birds hatch their young, a rare sight.
He will continue watching, to be sure, but he is sick about the whole thing. "Just sad, so sad," he said.
That day, before Nauman got the cherry-picker and scaled the tree, the female's mate flew into the tree. In minutes, another eagle appeared overhead, a female, and called.
The male shrieked back, and as the cherry-picker rumbled on the ground, the eagles flew off together. There are three months left in mating season, and the bird was quickly finding another mate.
That was in the paper today...why would someone shoot a bird? I doubt they will find out who did it....
to you!
to all the newcomers and the rejoiners....I know that we chat alot, but don't worry about just jumping in!
to you. Hope everything works out for you.
It's not done on purpose!
