Didn't intend to mention any studies, Craig . . . although I did make a reference to the Tall Timbers study, to which I referred earlier....
....Can't find hardly anything in my last 2 posts re the dangers of lead. You reading the same posts I am, Craig?....
....Why can't you find anyone who worked with waterfowl back then who will do the same thing? Why are all the whistleblowers silent....
....You and....keep making excuses for being unable to find proof that lead shot killing waterfowl is bad science. Give me even ONE study for "critical evaluation". Seems there ought to be something, written by some contrarian wildlife biologist, somewhere along the line. Establishing that it's bad science requires proof. So far, all I've heard from you and....are the typical snippets on which conspiracy theories are based. A bit from here, a piece from there, and when you connect all the dots . . . right....
....JFK assassination....yet another conspiracy theory....
You continue to miss my point Larry, but that's perfectly okay with me. You are more passionate about how bad lead is for waterfowl, than for pro ethical hunting. Okay, maybe you're not passionate about it, but repeat in hopes that it sticks.
I never said there is a conspiracy to conceal lead safety and waterfowl health, you said it. What you specifically say, underline specific is, if a dead duck is found and lead is found in its gizzard then that's conclusive that the duck died from lead shot sourced lead poisoning.
I painfully wanted to avoid your Tall Timbers study, but would you like to take a look at it, possibly a little more critically than you prefer? Your conclusion, 241 quail cut open, 3 had lead in their gizzards, none appeared to have lead poisoning. Correct?
Huh, no xrays, no blood tests, soils tests, water and food source tests?
Let's switch to your tactic, extrapolation. What percentage of quail die off annually anyway, that would've died from lead poisoning if they had a longer life span. More importantly, with the anticipated low carry over rate, how many dead, dying, or healthy appearing lead tainted quail were being eaten by raptors.
Remember, I'm not too worried about lost waterfowl opportunities at this point, but you say I am. So, I asked how come a dead bird is only tested for the presence of a substance, not the cause of death. Are the samples preserved, so that they can be retested if desired? Yes or no?
You asked about Raptor rehabilitators, so I looked. You asked about all the lead problems down in Georgia, so I looked. I asked you why your 'sources', soarraptors.org, had vague articles about lead, but then switched to tugging at heartstrings with the single death of a rescue bird. You came back later and said well, they're suspect. The you tell me to go look up what the fed wildlife service says and are they in on a conspiracy, and they reference a study and use pictures from soar....without disclosure.
You tell me eagles are dying from from lead poising of unretrieved lead bullet hunted deer. So I look for the study, and it's about only 25 gut piles evaluated on an Illinois management area. But, the FWS study says that concludes that eagles are dying from lead rifle bullet fragments in Wisconsin and Iowa. You also chose to ignore that in the entire FWS study, only one eagle appeared to show signs of lead poisoning.
But, you were aware of this already. Look back at your Tall Timbers 'study' where none of the quail 'appeared' to have lead poisoning. Then recall my stated motivation for commenting, your admission that eagles can be a poster bird for insignificant, scientifically, reasons, but your demonizing of members of the bird hunting community. Keep in mind you said tough luck for the deer hunters, they can take care of themselves. Tough luck for California, they just don't have the numbers.
But....all we can do is insist on good science.
