Myra Finkelstein, adjunct professor in the Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology Department, was one of nine researchers nationwide honored on July 8 by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) for developing humane solutions to human-wildlife conflicts. Each researcher will receive a grant of up to $15,000 as part of the Christine Stevens Wildlife Award, which honors AWI's late founder and longtime president.
AWI awarded Finkelstein the prize for her proposal to determine if feathers can be used as a noninvasive biological marker to assess the health effects from lead exposure in eagles. In her proposal, she also explains the limitation of blood tests, citing lead's estimated 14-day half-life in blood. She stated how this makes it difficult to determine the overall magnitude and frequency of lead exposure in wild birds, as well as the subsequent physiological damage—adding that even sub-lethal lead exposure can cause irreversible damage.
In previous research, Finkelstein found that lead concentrations from feathers can be used to reconstruct lead-exposure history of California condors, and that condors are exposed to lead more frequently—and at a higher level—than indicated by blood tests.
Finkelstein's work seeks to generate data about contamination-induced impacts on wildlife to inform conservation solutions for at-risk species. Her pioneering research on lead poisoning in California condors helped bolster California’s ban on the use of lead ammunition in hunting. Condors, eagles, and other species are poisoned by ingesting bullet fragments when they feed on the remains of animals shot with lead-based ammunition.
She has also led research that found microplastic particles in the digestive tracts of anchovies and seabirds in Monterey Bay, as well as documented the widespread presence of microplastics in seawater.
