The population is booming right now. It's at the highest I've ever seen it. I worked for the US Fish and Wildlife service 15 years ago and we thought it was high then.There appear to be more now. They nest all over the place here in NE Iowa and on the Mississippi river. The amount of deaths is not proportional to the population. The number of birds has gone up much faster and higher than the number of poisonings.
I'm sure there are numbers out there in possession of the .Gov that show this. It makes for good Donation inducing PR though to show a bunch of dead birds. All of those dead birds are kept by the USFWS and allocated out to Native groups for Ceremonial purposes only. Sad, cause I'd love to have one Taxidermy mounted in flight with a small Poodle in it's Talons.