The hunt is on to find an arrow that fell to the ground in a paddock, in the hope that it will still contain the fingerprints or the DNA of the person who fired it. More than a week ago, the arrow was shot through the leg of a large wedge-tailed eagle, leaving the apex predator in excruciating pain and in need of medical intervention.
A $15,000 reward has been offered to anyone who can help catch and convict the person responsible. Pictures from a week ago show the bird flying with the red-feathered arrow still caught in its leg. Witness accounts from that time indicate it was likely struggling to hunt and had resorted to eating roadkill.
Craig Webb, the founder of Raptor Refuge, spent more than a week tracking down the injured bird in Tasmania after he received a phone call about it from a member of the public in late July.
“It’s just a despicable act, and it just shows, you know, the level of intelligence these people have,” he told Yahoo News Australia.
While the eagle is recovering well, it will need surgery to remove a bone fragment from its leg. Source: Raptor Refuge
How do we know where the arrow fell?
Working with an expert trapper, Webb set camera traps to pinpoint its exact location in the southern coastal Tasmanian town of Margate. A remotely controlled net was then fired out of a cannon, and the eagle was secured and taken into care. While the bird is recovering well, it will need an operation to remove a bone fragment from its leg.
By the time they’d caught the eagle, the arrow had fallen out, but by trawling through images taken beforehand, Webb has been able to figure out a rough location where it likely landed.
“We can pinpoint where it happened down to an area of around 10 tennis courts. We’re going to do a grid search, and some people are coming out with metal detectors on Saturday to see if we can find it,” Webb told Yahoo News.
“We’ve got to be extremely careful when we find it. We’ll need to be double-gloved so we can keep it forensically safe.”
The ground is mostly rough pasture which will be easy to search, but there’s one major problem the team could face.
“There’s a big dam that we’ve got to search around. We just have to hope it hasn’t fallen in,” Webb said.
“But we think we have a pretty good shot of finding it.”
Although eagles getting shot is a problem in Tasmania (left), electrocution from powerlines is a far bigger problem (right). Source: Raptor Refuge
Eagles face bigger problem than ‘idiots’ with arrows
Eagles in Tasmania are protected, but they face multiple threats, and they’re not all from “idiots” firing arrows and shooting guns at them. One of the biggest killers is power lines, which electrocute eagles all the time. Although cheap bird diverters or “flappers” could be affixed to the lines to alert birds to their presence, they are seldom used.
“They kill birds weekly and not enough is being done about it. To be honest, I’m more angry about the power lines than the occasional idiot. That said, I’d love to catch them and convict them,” Webb said.
If you’d like to donate to Raptor Refuge to help with its work, you can do so here. If you have information about the eagle shooting, or if you’re able to help in the search for the arrow on Saturday, you can contact Raptor Refuge via the details on its social media page.
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