A HAWK SEASON OF DESPAIR- Four Gone in a Month

 Intrepid broods eggs.  Her three eyasses that season were accidentally poisoned on the nest by being fed a poisoned rat.

 Photo Donegal Browne

2011-Young Ginger Lima, recently deceased,  tends her eyasses fathered by Pale Male- photo courtesy of palemale.com

                
From Myisha Priest,  hawk watcher,  NYU professor,  and the host of a seminar that 

celebrated the wildlife of New York City --


                                    Donna,                                    
   I just read the news of Intrepid. Heartbroken. She was singular in her ability to persevere. Though I guess they all are, which is one of the reasons we love them. Remember when her beak was broken and she made it through the winter anyway?
  What a sad hawk season. Violet, Lima, the Southside hawk and now Intrepid. Yet they say that grief is the price we pay for love...
 I send wishes for peaceful rest for those who are gone, wishes for better times for those who are here, and kind thoughts to the hawks and the tender (and bruised) hearts of those who love them.

 Myisha your note is beautiful.  Thank you.  I am afraid that my heart, among many others, has been bruised very badly this time around.

There have been times of despair before for those who love and attempt to succor New York City's urban hawks but the last year, which includes the long drawn out travail of Violet due to  human failure, has been, I think, the darkest.

Though there is no proof and may never be, as the testing of the very common Red-tail Hawk for poison is low on the list of priorities for the financially strapped New York State Wildlife Pathology budget, the known evidence points to secondary poisoning as the cause of death in this  latest wave of unblemished beautifully feathered corpses.
 Poison is also arguably a possible vector in the disappearance of Pale Male's mate of many years, Lola.

Today I am at a loss as to what more we can do soon enough to help the now living survive.  For assuredly what we have done has not been enough to save those who are gone and my feeling is that only luck has allowed those who still live to continue their lives.

Education is slow.  Poison is fast.

If mature, city-savvy hawks such as Intrepid, and before her, Builder,  Athena, Hawkeye, Ginger Lima, and Lola to name a very few, have not found any clues to warn them away from the rats that killed them, there likely aren't any clues and the death toll will only continue. 

Can we find a strategy that works with the rapidity that poison does?   

Hawkeye of Fordham, mate of Rose and the father of many, many well fledged young died of poison.  Photo Donegal Browne

Photo Donegal Browne

Athena of the Triborough Bridge nest,  a mother for many seasons, died of  rodenticide secondary poisoning leaving a clutch of eggs.  Her mate Atlas attempted to hatch the eggs on his own, but with no one to hunt for him or spell him on the nest so he could leave to hunt and eat,  the eggs were sometimes unattended.  They never hatched.

 FROM NEW YORK MAGAZINE

Yet Another Red-Tailed Hawk Found Dead

• By Noreen Malone

It hasn’t been a good late winter for New York’s red-tailed hawk population. The first big news came when the first lady of New York’s hawks — Pale Male’s latest love interest — was found dead. Shortly thereafter, the body of another unidentified red-tailed hawk was found in Central Park. There was also a young hawk found dead in the park, which was mostly ignored outside of hawk watching circles.  But now, yet another  bird, this one a Riverside Park resident, has bitten the dust, bringing the recent death toll up to four.

 READ MORE

 Intrepid, Riverside Mom hunts.  Before she died, she had outlived a mate and three eyasses who had all died of poison.                                                      Photo Donegal Browne

EDUCATE AND ORGANIZE YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS ABOUT SANITATION, RATS,  SECONDARY POISONING AND WHAT THEY CAN DO TO MAKE THINGS BETTER FOR THE RAPTORS IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS.

Thanks to Rachel Shriff for posting flyers about secondary poisoning and the dangers of second generation poisons in her Queens neighborhood.

In memory also of all the hawks unnamed, who have died of secondary poisoning and human negligence. 

Donegal Browne