In February of 2018, wildlife biologists and veterinarians investigated the suspicious death of 32 trumpeter swans in a Clinton County wetland. What befell these icons of conservation in Iowa puzzled investigators, but in the end there was evidence to suggest that the toxic properties of lead the birds had accidentally ingested played at least an intervening role in their sudden death. Although trumpeter swan populations have been and continue to grow in Iowa, the sudden and unnatural death of those 32 swans, and other more isolated cases of lead poisoning deaths among other waterbirds, scavenging birds, and birds of prey across Iowa, has prompted interest in finding ways to reduce exposure and curtail these unnatural deaths...
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