Most hunters immediately gut the deer to cool it down quicker. Some also do it to get the two “tenders,” a pair of tasty little muscles inside the body cavity along both sides of the spine, kind of like filet mignon. Some hunters take the organs too, like the heart and liver.
Bald Eagles are both predator and scavenger. (They are also thieves.) They seldom turn down a free meal, but their diet is predominantly fish. While they do eat deer, it is usually roadkilled deer, which tends not to have lead in it. Fish, on the other hand, may be the real cause of ingested lead, due to the abundance of lead sinkers.
.fish don’t eat sinkers....