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.”