An X-ray image shows the birdshot injuries in a red-tailed hawk found near the Missoula landfill last week. Raptors are illegal to shoot at any time. 2013-10-17 Reports of bullet-riddled raptors increase as bird season opens
By Rob Chaney
Red-tailed hawks and other raptors fall as unintended or illegal targets each October as upland game bird season resumes in Montana. Those that survive the blast occasionally wind up in the care of raptor rehabilitators like Rob Domenech of Wild Skies Raptor Center.
“Most of it goes untold because the birds just drop and that’s it – end of story,” Domenech said. “But last week, I got a call from the manager at the Missoula landfill who had a raptor there. He found it right near the scale house. We think it was shot in that area, because it couldn’t have gone too far with those pellets all over its body. It was lead shot, probably for upland game birds.”
The hawk is slowly recovering at a clinic on Missoula’s south side under the care of Brooke Tanner, a licensed raptor rehabilitator.
“This one was the worst I’ve seen in all my years doing rehab,” Tanner said. “Usually it’s one piece of metal. This bird had nine. It must have been far enough away because the injuries were superficial. But the bird had been on the ground several days, and the wounds smelled pretty bad. We’ll let the bones heal and treat for infection before we try to dig out the pellets.”
Tanner has also treated owls, crows and numerous other non-game birds for firearms injuries. The red-tailed hawk with the blasted wing feathers was still able to fly, so she left it in the wild.
Federal law and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibit the killing of migratory raptors such as red-tailed and rough-legged hawks, and all owls. Crows don’t have that kind of protection, but most of the corvids Tanner’s seen were shot inside Missoula’s city limits, where discharging firearms is illegal.
“I get several crows every year when the babies are fledging and they’re pretty vocal,” Tanner said. “People don’t like the noise.”
With raptors, the problem may be a mistaken assumption that the birds of prey compete with two-legged hunters for pheasants and other game birds.
“Rough-legged hawks are not predators of upland birds,” said Ben Deeble, president of the Big Sky Upland Bird Association. “They have a real small foot, and eat nothing but smaller rodents. Red-tailed hawks are more generalist, and they catch the occasional upland bird. But we don’t consider hawks to be a predation problem where there’s good habitat.”
Most hawks seek mice and voles that compete with pheasants for forage in fields and meadows. Golden eagles will kill game birds, but there aren’t many of them in the Missoula or Mission valleys where bird hunters are active.
Pheasant season started Oct. 12, while other upland game birds like grouse and partridge have been legal since Sept. 1.
“Among some, there’s sentiment raptors are big birds that kill things and don’t have much other purpose,” Domenech said. “There’s some anti-predator sentiment out there. It’s disheartening someone would kill these birds. This (birdshot hawk) is a young bird, and they have 60 (percent) or 70 percent mortality in their first year of life anyway. It’s tough out there if you’re a raptor. All it takes is one bad person with a shotgun and they take out a lot of hawks.”
Exposing the Big Game 
Fucking hunters are a pox on the face of the planet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said it!!
Yup!
I’m so sick of hearing that “it’s a small minority of hunters”…BS!! Just ask my son-in-law who has a ranch in the Blackfoot Valley…They tear down fences, kill elk and deer on his clearly marked property, leave trash, shoot from their “big rigs”, wound animals because they don’t practice shooting…hell, I could go on……I grew up hunting, so don’t tell me I don’t see the big picture…….most are overweight fat slobs who wear their camo clothes everywhere , even while they’re hunting “Twinkies” in Walmart.
LOL!
Good line! 🙂
Yep, I’m so sick of seeing those camo-clad Twinkie-hunters.
This must be a mistaken article. Without hunters, there wouldn’t be any wildlife. Hunters are the best conservationists, they really care about the animals they kill. A hunter would never kill something s/he wasn’t going to eat. A hunter always knows what s/he is shooting–they always clearly identify a target before shooting. Hunters would never use lead shot as they know lead is deadly to animals including fish. Hunters are the ethical keepers of our wildlands because they love the environment. Hunters understand the interplay of predator and prey, and work hard to avoid disrupting Nature’s ‘balance’.
Didn’t hunters bring back the endangered mountain sheep, and don’t they only shoot a few of them every year to preserve their numbers, even though they really should be allowed to harvest them all–after all, they sowed the crop? Didn’t they try to stop city people from eating passenger pigeons? Didn’t they help extirpate wolves to save all the other animals, as well as wimmen and chirren? Don’t they just take the bad elephants that ruin crops of starving African children, and just harvest the big lions that might eat the kittens?
In addition, any hunter that kills something s/he should not have is obviously not a hunter, and cannot be characterized as a hunter. Hunters are saints. They were placed here directly by the gods. They also protect our freedoms. This newspaper should be sued for libel. Saying something bad about a hunter would be as bad as saying that “Mussolini did not get the trains to run on time.” If we had any friendship to begin with, it could well be over now, unless, of course, you meant for us to see how badly maligned the innocent hunters are. I mean, c’mon, who photoshops an xray to make the most kind, caring, intelligent, virtuous people on Earth look bad?
Ha-ha! Yup, that is like saying whores are professional social workers, no way could they cause half the fishermen in town to come down with crotch critters! 🙂
Surely you jest;)
Just a little. 🙂 Such a ‘bummer’ when they don’t get to itchin’ till they get out to sea. It’s not the tacky bottle of old spice in the shaving kit bag, nope, that’s A-200! Sorry about your virgin ears… 🙂 Truckers, Carnies, same thing. Maybe it’s a new thought for me to equate hunters with whores I don’t know, it just feels right ethically?
Jim,
Did you see this story, also in Grist? http://grist.org/list/jerks-kill-super-rare-albino-moose/
Yes, I heard about that. They’re all jerks–moose are rare enough already.
I hope those guy’s who shot that beautiful moose get Lyme Disease?
Jim, you hear that there is a theory that the Nazi Scientists developed Lyme Disease to put into ticks, and air repost on Russian moose during WWII? Then those same scientists went to work for the US Gov’t in the Plum Island Animal Research Labs, about 20 miles from Lyme, CT, as the seagull flies. My sister, Julie, lives near there and she has it so bad that she’s had many bedridden days and lost her job and her house!
Sometimes I wish I had the ability to get inside to their heads so that I can understand why they feel this need to kill these animals instead of just appreciating them while alive.
BTW, I picked up another Troll, from Boston (my area) he calls himself Carny Vore but his email is Buddy@netzero.com. His comments go straight to my trash bin. Have you had any hits from this Troll? Just curious.
Sorry to hear you’ve picked up a pesky troll. Doesn’t Raid make a new product for you can spray for them;) Anyway, I talked about the subject in this post: https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/just-call-me-a-cow-hugger/
I don’t visit their sites, maybe that’s another reason they don’t latch on so often.
I read that post — it’s a great one.
I never visit their sites either… not sure how this Troll locked onto me. He’s not a consistent visitor – thankfully.
Don’t hesitate to use your trash/delete button. It sends them packing every time.