FOYIL, Okla. — Staff at Wild Heart Ranch in Rogers County is pleading for change after they were forced to put down a bald eagle for lead poisoning — and this isn’t the first time.
It's why they started an initiative called the Clay Project, allowing anyone to drive out to Wild Heart Ranch in Foyil, and drop off lead. There is a wagon out front with buckets inside at the front of the facility. In return, staff will distribute non-lead fishing sinkers.
Daniel Hardt and his staff are doing everything in their power to keep bald eagles healthy. Clay, a bald eagle cared for at Wild Heart Ranch, was recently released near Oologah Lake. Within months, Clay flew back to Wild Heart Ranch with eight times the lethal dose of lead for bald eagles in his system.
Hardt said a bald eagle can get led in its system through lead fishing sinkers, or gut piles — when hunters leave the remains from the kills.
He said he believes a gut pile is more than likely how Clay, the bald eagle, got lead poisoning. Last year, he says 13 other bald eagles were taken in for lead poisoning.
“We take the lead paint away because it’s killing our children. We take lead out of our water system because it’s killing everybody, but we still keep lead out in nature and our dinner plates," Hardt said.
It’s Hardt’s plea to state and federal congressmen in the coming days for all the animals: Control lead products that can be controlled by humans.
Hardt says bald eagles are the most susceptible to getting lead poisoning out of any animal in the United States.
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