Want a quick lesson in junk agenda driven science and deceptive data kiddies?
First read this short article from the University of Minnesota Raptor Center:
http://www.raptor.umn.edu/our-research/lead-poisoningIt sounds pretty bad for lead ammunition until you really take a look at what they're saying. Their research, along with Minnesota DNR research was instrumental in providing evidence to support the 1991 Federal lead shot ban for waterfowl.
But when they did another study in 1997 to evaluate if the lead shot ban had reduced the number of lead poisoned eagles, it showed the prevalence of poisoned eagles didnt change even with good hunter compliance. This lead them to conclude that eagles were being poisoned from another source of lead... deer gutpiles left in the field by hunters.
So they are telling us that the 1991 lead shot ban had no effect, even though they had maintained that eagles eating lead poisoned waterfowl or birds wounded with lead shot was the main source of lead poisoning in eagles.
It was all bullshit!Now they are trying to convince you that the prevalence of lead poisoned eagles did not change by 1997 because of bullet fragments in deer... even though this new alleged source of lead, wounded deer and deer gut piles, is only available for a few weeks a year. But allegedly lead poisoned or lead containing ducks and geese were supposedly dying year round from both hunting and bottom feeding. Wouldn't you expect that the numbers of lead poisoned eagles, and their blood lead levels, should have dropped considerably?
They didn't!
Now check out this 2012 article from the National Biological Service:
http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/documents/95JCF.OLR01.pdfPay special attention to the map at the bottom left of the page that shows the numbers of eagles killed by lead poisoning by state. And note that the article does not even consider other sources of lead besides ammunition.
Iowa lost 16 eagles with an annual deer harvest of about 99,000 deer.
Illinois lost 9 eagles with an annual deer harvest of about 102,000 deer.
Wisconsin lost 43 eagles with a deer harvest of about 243,000.
Minnesota lost 23 eagles with an annual deer harvest of about 192,000 deer.
Maine lost 9 eagles with a deer harvest of just 21,000 deer.
Florida lost 14 eagles with an annual estimated deer harvest of about 136,000 deer.
South Dakota lost 22 eagles with a harvest of about 91,000 deer.
Ohio lost 4 eagles with a harvest of about 219,000 deer
Louisiana lost just 2 eagles with a deer harvest of about 117,000.
Pennsylvania lost only 1 eagle, that's 1 as in ONE, with a much higher annual deer harvest of about 330,000 deer.
Clearly, there is virtually no correlation between the numbers of hunter killed deer and the numbers of purported lead poisoned eagles. The correlation doesn't even hold up when you look at the total numbers of nesting pairs of eagles in these states. Pennsylvania had over twice as many nesting pairs as South Dakota in 2012... had a 3 1/2 times larger deer harvest... yet only a tiny fraction of lead poisoned eagles compared to S. Dakota. Virginia has the 5th highest number of nesting pairs of eagles in the continental U.S. and a 2012 deer harvest of over 231,000 deer, and only 2 eagle deaths by lead poisoning in 2012.
I imagine Larry will try to tell us that Pennsylvania and Virginia deer hunters do not leave wounded deer or gut-piles in the woods. Or maybe the UFO aliens are beaming them up before the eagles can eat them.
The University of Minnesota Raptor Center did not even consider other sources of lead... especially sources that are more bio-available, and thus more prone to actually cause toxic levels in the bloodstream. They jumped to a wild assed conclusion that helped pave the way for the 1991 Federal lead shot ban, and when that didn't help alleged numbers of poisoned eagles, they jumped to another wild assed conclusion about lead bullet fragments in deer carcasses and gut piles.
This is the crap that Larry and Brent are clinging to like a security blanket.
The Univ. of Minn. isotope analysis sounds impressive until you consider that isotope analysis cannot definitively prove that a sample of lead came from bullets or shot or some other source. It can only (sometimes) show what mine that lead came from. Lead comes from the natural decay of uranium, and uranium from differing sources decays into lead at different geological times. If the lead in the sample has been mixed with recovered or recycled lead, or lead from multiple sources, then isotope analysis is all but worthless. When you see lead isotope analysis being used as a smokescreen to try to sell the idea that lead ammunition should be banned, you should be very very suspicious. The same isotopes can be found in a bullet, a wheel weight, and a lead paint chip.
