A bald eagle, gone too soon. Wildlife center reports death of MK

Despite best efforts to save her, wildlife rescuers at Birdsey Cape Wildlife Center late Wednesday morning reported the death of a bald eagle brought to them from Arlington on Monday.

MK, a beloved female bald eagle who has nested in the Mystic River Watershed for a number of years, likely succumbed to rat poison ingested through her prey.

"After a valiant fight her system was simply no longer able to keep up," wildlife experts at the Barnstable wildlife center reported on their Facebook page just before noon on Wednesday.

According to the center, it appears MK "spontaneously hemorrhaged and began bleeding internally" as result of SGARS, or second generation anticoagulant rodenticides, a rodent poison that causes "uncontrollable bleeding and interferes with the body’s ability to stop that bleeding by natural clotting processes."

"With the poison in her system she did not have the ability to clot and the bleeding was catastrophic and began to occlude her airway," the rehabilitators reported.

An all-too-common occurrence:Fighting for life: Rescued baby owl gets emergency care after family dies from rat poison

Zak Mertz, CEO of the New England Wildlife Centers, on Wednesday afternoon said the staff are all heartbroken. The Birdsey center, located in Barnstable, is a program of the New England Wildlife Centers.

"It's been a rough day around here," he said Wednesday, noting MK passed overnight Tuesday. "Our whole team was so invested."

He said the veterinary team, including the medical director, were with MK as her condition escalated and were able to clear her airway and intubate her while also providing emergency drugs and fluids as her heart rate slowed, actions that likely made her passing more comfortable. In a last ditch effort, they performed chest compressions.

"Unfortunately, it was to no avail," Mertz said. "We did our best."

He noted that MK's red blood cell count was about one-third the cell count that would be seen in a healthy bird, which is a symptom often observed in wildlife suffering from SGARS poisoning.

"Just like humans, birds depend on these cells to carry oxygen and other nutrients around the body, especially to the brain," according to the center.

The rehabilitators said it is always difficult to watch patients in this condition, but noted "MK was particularly devastating."

"We know how well loved she is here in the Bay State and how many people her presence inspired to connect with our natural environments and the wildlife in them," the center posted. "We hope her case will serve as a true wake- up call for people to stop using SGARS, and will ultimately lead to true systemic change. It is time to restrict the use of these poisons. Rodent control does not need to come at the expense of our natural heritage and ecosystem."

MK, who hatched in 2016 in Waltham, leaves behind her mate, KZ, who hatched in Webster in 2015. She is the second bird within two weeks thought to have been poisoned by eating prey contaminated with SGARS. Last week, rescuers captured a sick owl with similar symptoms in a tree by Quincy Market in Boston. In April 2021, an adult great horned owl and one of her owlets found in Centerville died from ingesting what was suspected to be rat poison. A second owlet was also sick and received treatment at the local wildlife center.

State Rep. Jim Hawkins, D-Attleboro, and state Sen. Paul Feeney, D-Foxborough, have re-filed a bill that aims to improve the way use of SGARS by professional pest control companies is reported and shared in Massachusetts — an effort supported by the New England Wildlife Centers. The bill previously passed muster in both the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Senate, but missed getting passed as the legislative session ended before Gov. Charlie Baker could review it, Mertz said, explaining why it needed to be re-filed.

"Essentially this bill is not a ban, but we kind of see it as a critical first step in the fight towards getting a ban in Massachusetts," he said.

As it is now, he explained, "there's no way for legislators or researchers to understand how much of this stuff is being used, and where it's being used, to try to tie that to exposure in wildlife that we're seeing."

The wildlife centers, he said, see dozens of wild bird patients exhibiting symptoms of SGARS poisoning; it has also been seen in foxes.

"Week in and week out we have birds in similar conditions coming in," he said.

The team is hopeful MK's case will help shed a brighter light on the problem and result in some action.

"We will continue to fight for change," the center posted on Facebook.

MK and KZ got their "names" from the first two letters of the leg bands they received just before they fledged their nests. Bald eagles can live to be up to 30 years old, and they tend to mate for life, though Mertz said it's his understanding they sometimes will take new mates if one is lost.

The New England Wildlife Centers team invites anyone who would like to help them continue to provide veterinary care to their patients that suffer from SGARS poisoning to consider donations in MK's memory.

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