PARKSVILLE, British Columbia, Feb. 25 (UPI) -- A weak salmon run has thousands of Canadian bald eagles so hungry they're scrounging for meals at dumps, wildlife officials say.
The salmon run along the British Columbia coast is usually a big part of the big birds' diet. But fewer fish this year have left the eagles weakened.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Thursday a biologist recently counted 1,400 eagles at the Vancouver dump and another 1,300 were counted at a landfill near Parksville on Vancouver Island.
There have even been reports of eagles falling out of trees, dead of starvation.
"We've had a few in that were hungry," Bev Day of the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in Delta told the CBC. "We got one in the other night that had been drowning. It got into the water and didn't have the strength to get out. Some people hauled it out."
Wildlife officials say landfills are a source of food but can be dangerous for birds because poisoned pests, such as rats, are often disposed there.
Biologists say fresh food may not be far off, however, because herring runs generally start in the Strait of Georgia in March.
