Keith, you just keep at it, don't you? First of all, to go back to the very beginning and your contention that cattle in CA are a more likely source of lead in condors than bullet fragments: If you read the article you posted, you'll find that the article itself mentions lead shot as one of the sources of lead in cattle. I guess ingested via grazing activities? . . . but that's their statement, not mine. Second, cattle are ruminants. They chew their food. Whatever they eat gets chewed. Therefore, it seems to me that any lead that entered their mouths whole would get chewed up before it got swallowed (like paint chips, etc) and would not resemble bullet fragments if a dead condor were x-rayed for lead. Bullet fragments from deer and other animals, on the other hand, don't enter a deer through its mouth. And eagles don't chew their food. So there are going to be fragments in the critter scavenged, and will remain fragments in the digestive tract of the scavenger.
Correlation between the number of lead-poisoned eagles and the number of deer shot? It's your assumption that the "correlation" does not make sense. Eagles aren't the only scavengers out there, and their density is not so great that they're going to be eating all the wounded and unrecovered deer. They may only eat part of a dead deer (cleaning up after some other scavenger); they may miss the parts that contain bullet fragments; or the eagle in question may ingest fragments, go off and die, and not be recovered to be examined. I wouldn't hang my hat on that one if I were you. Way too many possibilities.
My initial statement concerning Audubon was not a direct quote from them. What I said was: "Audubon is not squarely in the anti-hunting camp." And their own statement clearly establishes that they are not. Craig left out all the pro-hunting parts . . . quite conveniently. That's what agenda-driven people do. It's an attempt to avoid being fair and balanced.
The prevalence of lead poisoned eagles . . . well Keith, there were 3400 breeding pairs of bald eagles in 1991. By 1997, that figure had increased to 5300 pairs. So if as many were dying from lead poisoning in 1997 as in 1991, that would mean a significant REDUCTION in the PERCENTAGE of eagles dying from lead poisoning. Plus, as you have pointed out yourself, just because we stopped shooting lead shot didn't mean it disappeared instantly. Ducks and geese could still ingest it, and eagles could still eat ducks and geese and end up with lead shot as a result. But if the number remained relatively constant, that actually shows a REDUCTION in lead poisoning, which could well be a result of the lead shot ban. But since the scavenged animals shot with lead bullets were there in 1991, lead bullets weren't banned, and scavenged animals shot with lead bullets were still there in 1997, that could obviously be a source of lead poisoning--at roughly the same rate--both before and after the lead shot ban.
As for the CIA, it has nothing to do with "sneaky activities" in the US government. That would be the business of the Dept of Justice and the FBI . . . and the FBI guards its turf very jealously. And very little extra-legal is likely to happen in CIA, for the simple reason that--as I pointed out where conspiracies are concerned--some whistleblower is going to toot his whistle about what's going on. Mainly because it's not good for one's career, and can quite easily involve jail time, if you play fast and loose with the law and the regulations that govern the intelligence community.
As for your contention that hackers debunked climate change . . . Nope. Contrarian scientists debunked climate change. All hackers did was reveal some inconsistencies in data. But the hackers aren't the big deal. The scientists who disagreed from the start are the big deal. So where are the wildlife scientists who are debunking the great lead poisoning scam you're suggesting? Looks like from all your googling, you haven't found their equivalent. And your "refutations" of evidence are based on assumptions you make, through which I can punch fairly large holes without any significant effort. Show me an EXPERT who says all the lead poisoning stuff is bogus. Sorry, but you're not an expert.
Last edited by L. Brown; 01/26/16 06:06 PM.
