High Country News Feature
Lead Bullets Find a Champion in Tester
Wild game shot with lead ammo hurts birds and humans who eat it. So why is Montana's junior U.S. Senator introducing legislation to exempt bullets from regulation?By Nathan Rice, 5-23-11
Condor image courtesy USFWS Pacific Southwest Region.
Last January, three endangered California condors were found dead in Arizona. The cause of death: lead poisoning. After eating carrion riddled with spent lead ammunition, the birds’ digestive systems likely shut down, starving them to death. Since condor reintroduction began in Arizona in 1996, 15 have died of lead poisoning; in California, 18 condors have bit the bullet. After 25 years spent trying to recover the condor from near-extinction, the birds remain imperiled by lead in their scavenged prey.
Despite growing concerns about health effects on both humans and wildlife, however, lead ammunition still flies widely unregulated across the West. Sen. Jon Tester, D-MT, wants to keep it that way.
With a bill introduced last month, Tester hopes to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act to permanently exempt lead bullets, shot and fishing tackle from regulation. The bill comes in the wake of a 2010 lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups demanding that EPA ban lead ammunition; an earlier petition was refused when EPA claimed it has no jurisdiction over the stuff. Last November, EPA refused to ban lead fishing sinkers, despite its own warnings of threats to health and wildlife.
Lead’s effects on birds resulted in a 1991 nationwide ban of lead ammunition for hunting waterfowl. California banned lead ammo in the condor’s range in 2007 with mixed results blamed on poor enforcement. Arizona has distributed free coupons for the more expensive lead-free alternative ammo since 2005 with high hunter participation. Most other states have no such programs or restrictions.
The potential for human exposure by eating wild game shot with lead ammunition has also been documented. One study concluded, “At risk in the U.S. are some ten million hunters, their families, and low-income beneficiaries of venison donations.”
The gun lobby decries any restriction on lead ammunition, claiming that banning lead ammo would exclude low-income hunters, and denies its harmful effects.
Meanwhile, condors continue eating lead. Recent research from the University of California Santa Cruz found that 90 percent of condors tested have lead in their blood with isotopes tracing back to bullets. Ongoing efforts to recover the condor include recapturing and treating individuals for lead poisoning. In Pinnacles National Monument in 2009, over half of the 30-strong flock needed emergency lead treatments to prevent fatal poisoning.
Just a few weeks ago, Sen. Tester successfully de-listed the Northern Rockies wolf with a budget rider, and it seems likely this is another move aimed at shoring up his conservative cred in a red-leaning state. We’ll have to wait until 2012 to see whether that strategy works.
Nathan Rice is an intern at High Country News. This post originally appeared on HCN’s The Goat Blog and is republished here with permission.
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Furthermore, I would rather lose a few birds to lead poisoning than have thousands crippled by non-toxic shot.
Let's be honest, it's not lead that threatens the condor, it's man and the modern world. Bulldoze half of California, reestablish their habitat, get rid of power lines and coyotes, and you can shoot lead all you want without dinging the condor population.
While I don't like seeing any species go the way of the Dodo, we spend an awful lot of time and money trying to save the California Condor, a bird that seems to be unable to compete and survive in the modern world. Perhaps we have to have a real discussion about evolution taking its course?
Perhaps the condor just isn't suited for the current environment. Species come and go based on their ability to compete successfully.
Hunters do not "clean animals and leave the guts with lead shot in it behind"
Animals hunted with lead shot are small game,waterfowl( for which lead shot is already banned) and upland birds.
The shot the condors are ingesting is mainly from poachers-people shooting birds,and small animals,and leaving the animal behind.
Big game hunting is done with a rifle,which has ONE piece of lead,which passes all the way through the animal in most cases,or ends up lodged in bone-niether of which cause a condor to ingest lead.
The "Project gutpile" group in CA. consists of ONE guy with a website-that has very,very few entries.
Get the lead out....
The EPA is right-they have ZERO authority to regulate ammunition-that was exempted from EPA control when the agency was created.
The Center for Biologic Diversity offered NO proof,and used outdated studies when they filed their petition with the EPA.
If lead shot/bullet fragments are such a danger to raptors-why has the bald eagle population increased around 700% in the recent past?
Eagles eat the same animals that condors do.
BULLSHIT-when a game animal is shot with a bullet-it either passes through,or lodges in bone-there are not enough fragments to pose any significant risk to humans or animals.
MAYBE the lead is from lead shot-maybe-and if it is,who is shooting the "carrion" and just leaving it lying around for condors to eat? It's sure as hell not hunters!
"Condors, bald eagles, and golden eagles inadvertently ingest lead when they encounter carcasses or the remains of animals cleaned by hunters in the field. Microscopic lead particles are widespread throughout game shot with lead ammunition. Condors also can mistake bullet fragments for the calcium-rich bone they require. The birds absorb the toxic metal more quickly than other raptors and expel it less efficiently."
http://lpfw.org/news/0612condorlead.htm
"Three new scientific studies by University of California researchers confirm that lead poisoning of endangered California condors and other wildlife is due to scavenging animals ingesting fragments of spent lead hunting ammunition. One study also demonstrated that the 2008 California ban on lead ammunition in condor habitat has been effective in removing lead from the environment, as evidenced by a significant reduction in lead exposure in golden eagles and turkey vultures soon after the new regulation took effect."
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2011/lead-04-08-2011.html
But again, this article is about Tester pandering to folks like you for votes, not about lead poisoning of wildlife, which is simply a proven fact.
If condor lovers want to ante up and support the lead-free bullet market in condor regions, that seems plenty fair to me, but it will never happen.
As for the lead-free thing, the fact remains that lead is a superb, cost-effective projectile material. Sometimes a bronze or copper or gilding-metal solid is a better choice, or even some of those funky tungsten alloys.
But I'm not going to give up lead because the zealots at CBD sued to make it so, and because they have some "scientific" sympathizers at the o-so-rigorous UC Santa Cruz for backup.
Because both Rehberg and Tester will support keeping sporting lead away from the crusaders at EPA and CBD....well, that's really a political wash at best.
You are getting all of youe information from anti-hunting groups,and old studies.
As I said-if lead in carrion is what is killing condors-why has the bald eagle population increased by about 700% in the recent past?
None of the arguments for banning lead hunting ammunition make any scientific sense-with the exception of lead shot for waterfowl.
The only reason the lead shot ban makes sense is that lead shot would concentrate in areas that are used frequently by waterfowl hunters,as the lead shot does not all hit the duck or goose being shot at,and it doesn't travel far.
Lead rifle ammunition does not fragment much,you have obcviously never been a hunter,or seen a rifle bullet removed from a big game animal-thery tend to be a mushroom shape-and the lead core is kept mainly intact by the metal jacket around it.
Studies have been done on PEOPLE who eat a diet based on animals harvested with lead ammunition,and there is no lead poisoning-the results would be the same if someone other than groups who support the CBD,and U.C. did a study.
Bald eagles are surviving,their population is increasing,and they eat carrion -why are there no bald eagles dying from all this supposed lead hunters supposedly are leaving around?
Also:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=wild-game-deer-venison-condors-meat-lead-ammunition-ban
then there's this....
"Cornatzer was shocked that the deer’s entire carcass was riddled with dozens of tiny lead-shot fragments."
from your Scientific Americna article-it was talking about an X-ray of a mule deer shot in the chest with a rifle-riflees do not use le4ad shot-they shoot a single projectile,that is jacketed with copper,or sometimes other metals to prevent the lead core of the bullet from deforming,or fragmenting.
The authors of the article have no clue about ammuniton for rifles,hunting,or how animals get lead shot in their carcasses.
Read the first comment,then look up the studies done in North Dakota-and I belive it was Minnesota (not the one that started all this "eating game taken with lead rifle ammuntion is unhealthy" or endangers other animals BS) that disprove all the BS from the extrme environmental groups,and people like the person who runs the so-called "Project Gutpile" in CA.
Our scientists vs their scientists. Same ol with wolves, bears, etc. Always an agenda.
50 years of eating deer, elk, moose, antelop, and a few sheep and goats all shot with lead bullets. Still here and even have lead pellets in my arms and back from a failed apple raiding party when I was 10. (6 or 8 shots of 22 buckshot I think, hurt like hell and I never went back) My wife stated I should go to the doctor last year and get it removed. The doc just laughed at me.
No doubt a few condors get wacked by lead posioning, but you are gonna have to come up with a few scientists, biologists, etc. who don't have an agenda to do the testing.
Tester supports the legislation because it makes sense. I prefer Denny Reberg myself, but Tester is doing the job.
Nathan, you made alot of friend up here with that "red" comment. Whats wrong with a representative who echos the thoughts of the people they are suppose to represent?