One Year Later, Case of Poisoned Bald Eagles Resolved. By Lex Gray .wjfw.com.  May 10, 2012.   ‘Vulnerable’ isn’t a word that we associate with our national bird. But last year, that’s how seven eagles looked when they were found at Eagle River Landfill. The birds were near death, but miraculously recovered and were able to fly back into the wild two months later. It wasn’t until the federal case closed May 2 that details were released about how the eagles were poisoned. The birds were poisoned from eating euthanized cats, which are regularly dumped at the landfill by the Vilas County Humane Society. 

That’s a regular practice, but on that day, the digester was broken, so the eagles had easy access to the carcasses.No one was criminally prosecuted in the case, and it seems everyone involved agrees that this should be a teaching moment for the public.“It’s always so wonderful to see them go back home,” said Marge Gibson, who rehabilitated the birds at the Raptor Education Group, Inc. ”That’s where they belong and the reason that we do our work is to get them in, get them recovered, and get them back home.”Gibson and a staff of two treated seven birds for a week before they were able to walk and breathe on their own.“It was really a miracle when they started standing up on their own and walking around without convulsing,” she said.It took them another two months to fully recover and go back to the wild. Gibson hopes veterinarians and the public learn from this case.“Even though we talk about it being put to sleep, that’s really a misnomer. They use poison. It’s definitely a very difficult thing, but anything that eats that body becomes poisoned as well,” she said.Both Gibson and prosecuting federal attorney John Vaudreuil agree there’s no villain in this case.“We didn’t see any indication that there was any sort of intentional poisoning,” said Vaudreuil. “It was a secondary effect of the euthanasia. I felt that instead of doing what we often do, which is achieve our goals through criminal prosecution, here the goal was to get the message out about secondary poisoning.”“The educational aspects of this are going to be really great and far-reaching,” Gibson said. “We really have to do a better job of supporting the humane societies in our area so they can have a place to cremate the bodies rather than just putting them in the landfill.”Both Gibson and Vaudreuil said this happy ending is thanks to many organizations working quickly and efficiently together, including the DNR, Fish and Wildlife Services, Wild Instincts, and the Vilas County Humane Society.