Keith, where--from the National Audubon Society--do you see a statement supporting a lead ban? I can't find one. I find a couple from Audubon affiliates talking about alternatives, educating hunters, etc. But nothing from Audubon National on a lead ban. And I hope you are aware that there are HUNTERS who think it's a good idea to get rid of lead. I do NOT happen to be one of them, and have written in support of retaining lead for a national publication. The real danger comes from those who not only oppose lead, but who put out false information in support of their opposition. (Like steel is as effective as lead, or steel is safe in all modern shotguns.) You'll see me respond to misinformation like that any time it appears.
I'm sure we haven't gotten rid of all the lead in wetlands etc. However, the soil isn't static. Silt builds up, buries what's underneath. And are you suggesting that ducks and geese are still dying from lead poisoning but that no one's reporting it . . . because the anti-lead folks "got what they wanted"? Sorry, but I'd call BS big time on that one. You've got a bunch of people out there, both private and public (DNR etc), that are going to be made aware of sick and dying animals. You've got people in the rehabilitation business. If someone is showing up on their doorstep with sick ducks and geese, they are NOT going to keep that secret. They're going to make noise about it, just as they make noise about eagles (using the most visible species: their "poster bird") getting sick and dying. So the "drama" is still there, and if it were still there to the same extent with waterfowl, then you'd hear about it. Count on it. You need to come up with a better explanation of why we are NOT seeing all the sick and dying ducks and geese that we saw before the ban took place. On another BB, there's a retired game warden in WI who saw enough of it that he switched to steel long ago. He's retired, so he no longer has to worry about his organization's "agenda"--assuming they have one.
Keith, please explain to me how I'm "shooting us in the foot" where upland game is concerned. Maybe you didn't read my articles. If you'd like, send me a PM along with your address and I'll send you copies. What you'll find are points I made along these lines:
1. Steel is NOT safe in "all modern shotguns". Visit the Browning website. They recommend no steel in any of their Belgian-made guns, like the A-5's, Superposeds, etc--hundreds of thousands of which shoot modern lead ammunition and were produced after WWII.
2. We know that steel is less efficient ballistically than lead. There have never been any side by side, blind studies of lead vs steel on upland birds. When Tom Roster conducted steel shot lethality studies on pheasants, he found problems with steel (more frequent examples of feather-balling and less penetration) than he saw on ducks. There was also a 12% wounding loss rate in that test, which I consider unacceptable and higher than one would expect with standard lead loads. If we were to ban lead shot, for example, for pheasant hunting, would we perhaps be trading more pheasants that fly off crippled and die in order to save the occasional bird that picks up spent lead pellets?
3. There is no proof--other than in the case of doves on very heavily-hunted areas such as public land--that upland birds ingest lead pellets as do waterfowl. For example, Tall Timbers quail research facility in FL fired over 8,000 shells on 500 acres--which is incredibly concentrated shot fall by upland hunting standards. They examined the gizzards of 241 quail; found pellets in 3 of them. And they noted no instances of suspected lead poisoning. Lead shot simply does not pose the same kind of threat to upland game, except under very specific circumstances, that it does to waterfowl.
4. There is no proof that eating wild game shot with lead ammunition, in quantities that most people would consume it, poses any threat to human health. If one were to eat it on a daily basis and pay no attention to the removal of lead shot and/or visible bullet fragments, it might be a different story.
Those are some of the points I made. Sounds real anti-lead, right? I also pointed out all the vintage guns we use that cannot be used with steel, and for which there is no reasonably priced "nontoxic" alternative to lead.
Re the dead and dying waterfowl, are you suggesting that no one bothered to check their blood lead levels? No one checked to see if they'd ingested lead pellets? Keith, you need to give up on your contention that the science on waterfowl was bad. We already lost that one. We're not going to be shooting lead at waterfowl again. See my points above. We have to take our stand on the fact that upland birds are different than both waterfowl and scavengers in that they are much less likely to ingest lead. And that's a very easy argument to make. Show us all the dead pheasants, quail, etc along with evidence that they've been dying of lead poisoning--which evidence was shown to us before steel was banned on waterfowl.
Where do American waterfowl spend much time where lead is NOT banned, Keith? It's banned here and in Canada. As for Argentina, those doves are PESTS. They could care less if they live or die. That's why they permit hunters to shoot unlimited numbers of them. You find a dead dove in Argentina, the assumption is going to be that it was shot and went unrecovered. And who would care if they died off in big numbers from lead poisoning . . . other than the people who make money off the hunting tourism industry?
I'd say that people like you, Keith, are the ones that are hurting efforts to retain lead. You start by assuming that the lead ban for waterfowl was based on junk science. That won't fly. It's water over the dam. It's a fight we already lost. We need to make the fight to retain lead ammunition for those species on which we can still shoot lead. And, as I pointed out above, we have plenty of ammunition to make that fight. And the antis don't have anywhere near the ammunition they had on waterfowl. The Nontoxic Shot Advisory Committee to the Minnesota DNR admitted as much in their own report, back in 2006: "The issues are extremely complex and conclusive datea on wildlife population impacts is lacking. Furthermore, it is unlikely that conclusive data can ever be obtained dues to the cost of this type of research." It's not nearly as easy to find large numbers of upland birds--or for that matter, almost any other birds--that can be shown to be sick or dying from lead poisoning. Not so hard with waterfowl, for the simple reason that waterfowl concentrate heavily; other bird species (and especially upland birds) do not. And, as the Tall Timbers research shows, even when there are fairly heavy concentrations of upland birds and unusually heavy shot fall, there isn't any evidence of a significant impact on the quail.
Starting an argument by going back to a battle we've already lost is a losing tactic. Forget waterfowl. That battle is over. Done with. Make your points on the critters we can still hunt with lead.
