BATON ROUGE -- The Wildlife Hospital of Louisiana in Baton Rouge says that the number of bald eagles coming in for treatment has increased significantly over recent years. This year is no different; in fact, it's on pace to be nearly half as much as the previous year.

"20 years ago, 25 years ago, when I started doing this, we had actually seen maybe one to two bald eagles a year, sometimes not at all. Last year, we had 22 bald eagles. This year we're already up to 21 bald eagles, and this is when it gets busier, so we might break 30 eagles this year," Wildlife Hospital Director Mark A. Mitchell said.

It was around 50 years ago that bald eagles nearly went extinct in the United States due to the now-banned pesticide known as DDT, which caused the eagles' eggs to be thin.

"The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act was passed to protect bald eagles, golden eagles, and other eagles that were in decline in population several decades ago," Louisiana Wildlife Federation Executive Director Rebecca Triche said.

The bald eagle population has increased to the point where it is no longer considered endangered. However, the hospital is concerned with the amount coming in.

"Even if they are more stable and they're reproducing, the fact that we're seeing much higher numbers is telling us that something is going on and more importantly, the other concerns is we're only seeing what people bring us, so this doesn't represent the bald eagles that get injured or die out in the wild that don't get seen at all," Mitchell said.

This past weekend, two more bald eagles were brought in for treatment, with both having been shot. It is illegal to kill bald eagles because they are migratory birds and protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

"The eagles are having negative encounters out in the environment, a lot of times it's human-based, sometimes it's hit by a vehicle, sometimes it is associated with gunshots," Mitchell said.

The hospital showed WBRZ several X-rays of an eagle having a break in a part of its leg, which would be equivalent to a human's shin bone. With the bone in many fragments, doctors and vets put pins across the bottom and top of the eagle's leg and a bar so that they can put all of the weight onto the bar.

The eagle also had a bullet pellet in its abdomen. The hospital's goal is to help the eagle recover and release it back into the wild during a very important time for the species.

"They come down to breed, so that's why this is important, because the animals that came in, the eagle that we did the surgery on looks to be a female, and this is the time for her to be breeding. If we can't get her out in a certain amount of time, then they'll lose that breeding cycle," Mitchell said.

The Wildlife Hospital of Louisiana has had around 2,000 animal cases this year, nearly 650 more cases than the previous year. Mitchell says that the hospital receives no government funding and relies heavily on donations to fund its work.