Keith, Craig refers to "a quick few minute search". You can find whatever you want on the Internet, pro and con. You stop on the one you like . . . "Hey, this guy agrees with me, so I must be right."....
....nearly 60 percent tested positive for lead poisoning. Yes indeed, that's only a fraction . . . but it's hardly a small fraction.....
....How about the USFWS?....
....Think on this for a moment, Keith: Many state DNR's are funded mainly, if not entirely by hunter dollars. License fees. The antis don't pay squat because they don't hunt. If hunting stops, the DNR's are out of business. So does it make sense for them to be anti-hunting?....
.....what always got me about the conspiracy theorists--and that's what you and Craig are, because you believe that all these wildlife biologists were complicit in lying about what was killing waterfowl, and they're now complicit in lying about what's killing eagles and condors--is that when you get too many people involved in a conspiracy....
....Where are those whistleblowers among wildlife biologists? Their jobs depend on hunting, because antis don't pay, and nonhunters don't pay....
....So you'll have to explain to me how it makes sense that all those people would keep their mouths shut tight when they know that the information they're putting out to HUNTERS is bogus....
....(SOAR--Saving Our Avian Resources--says "We know it's the lead fragments that are making them sick." They have an obvious bias, so I'm not buying the fragments as the cause in all cases. But in some cases? Maybe most cases? We know there are lead fragments in venison, and we know that eagles scavenge deer, and we know that lead fragments show up in their systems. I don't think we can give lead bullets a "pass" . . . at least not to the same extent we can defend lead shot in the case of upland game. To the extent that's a problem for hunters . . . well, we have to face up to it.)....
Got a minute Larry, hope you might sit through my area 51 cow pies.
I'll start up top. 'My' quick search was as keith said, the search that you called for. So, I look, and find a complementary to you write up about some premier raptor rehabilitator. I thought the guy might walk on water, but it turns out he 'works on' about fifty raptors a year, this being doctor number one in the whole southeast. So, it makes me comment that maybe the raptor rehab folks aren't shuffling the big sensational numbers like Larry seems to indicate.
Pittman-Robertson funds do not pay for DNR's. They get rolled into the budget of the Dept of the Interior, that gets the vast majority of its funding from income tax payers including non hunters. The head of this dept is a presidential appointee. This is the person that decides on what does and doesn't get funded, studied and how it's presented.
What do you mean by whistle blowers. They are employees of the presidential appointee, and work for their goals. I think the conspiracy is on your side, just kidding, I think it's silly.
Back to your facts and figures, and how about that FWS. Where'd you get that 60% number? It's very easy to look up, FWS 'lead exposure in bald eagles in the upper midwest'. 58 dead birds sampled, a bit small eh, 60% of those showed trace, repeat trace, levels of lead. Of those, 38% showed high levels, only one, repeat only appeared to show lead poisoning signs.
They looked at potential, repeat potential sources of lead, which we know are many. The 'researchers' arbitrarily decided to focus on lead from rifle hunting bullets in gut pile. Not my words, it's in the report, with no reason or justification given.
25 gut piles were studied from an Illinois management area, most of the dead eagles were collected from Iowa and Wisconsin. They say these results conclude, deer offal is a very likely pathway to lead exposure. Do you think those dots are connected well enough?
Here's an interesting tidbit. Who did the collecting and studying of the 25 deer gut piles that the FWS says is the 'likely pathway'? Who describes the study on their website, who provided the x-ray of the 107 pieces of lead fragments in a gut pile? SOAR. Who uses the 'evidence', the FWS.
You know, that could be just fine, but you yourself said SOAR has an 'obvious bias'.
Call me anything you want, but I don't believe the FWS study is half way decent science. You and Brent can 'win' no big deal to me, but Brent seems to be getting a little warm under the collar. I hope an authoritative Brent will revisit this, and break down where I'm wrong. Yes, eagles can and do get lead poisoning and have died from it.
