Keep in mind, he's stating that gun deer hunters, in the short Wisconsin gun deer season, are responsible for, not all, eagle lead poisoning, all year round, because it's a fact that they don't recover wounded game. One of the things that I tried to go over was the source of this concept, but that along with other points of view are enough to call manhood into question. Weird huh.
Craig, that may be one of the more convoluted paragraphs that I've ever read. If I want to respond to something YOU said, I QUOTE YOU. (As I just did.) If you want to respond to something I said--assuming you want to have an intelligent and accurate discussion rather than playing some stupid "gotcha" game--how about you extend me the same courtesy? In the above case, as best I can untangle your grammar, I didn't say anything remotely like what you expressed in your quote. It is certainly a fact that deer hunters do not recover all wounded game. It is also a fact--which can be verified by a whole lot of people who just happen to be driving down the road and spot a dead deer--that eagles scavenge deer carcasses. It is also a fact that raptor rehabilitators have reported that the source of lead poisoning in at least SOME eagles is bullet fragments. It is also a fact that those reports make it into the media. (Those same raptor rehabilitators also report that the number of sick and dead eagles they deal with increases during and immediately after gun deer season.) I can provide examples of reports of that nature, if you'd like.
Now . . . if I were a deer hunter, I'd be concerned. I'd like to see some research done to determine to what extent (if any?) lead fragments from bullets result in eagles dying from lead poisoning. But I'm not a deer hunter. So when I wrote my two-part article on lead shot in Pointing Dog Journal, I looked at the threat ingested lead SHOT (not lead bullets, since we upland hunters don't shoot lead bullets at the birds we hunt) posed to either upland birds or any other species, especially eagles (since they get so much attention). This was partially in response to a Wisconsin Natural Resources Board proposal to ban lead shot on all DNR-managed land--which was soundly voted down by those of us who attended the DNR's annual spring meeting. And at my meeting, I stood up and gave my reasons for opposing the proposal. In the article, I also looked at the threat that eating wild game, most of which is taken with either lead shot or lead bullets, poses to humans--and determined that that threat also appears to be negligible . . . unless maybe you leave all the lead pellets in the birds you shoot, then intentionally swallow them.
And more recently, I provided the additional information on the thousands of eagles the USFWS is proposing to allow wind energy companies to kill, every year. And suggested that, just in case ANY of us that shoot lead at whatever are challenged by the raptor fans on eagles dying from lead poisoning, that if reducing eagle deaths is their REAL concern, then they ought to talk to the USFWS about all those eagles they want to allow wind farms to kill.
All of which seems quite reasonable and straightforward to me. But I'll be glad to answer any questions . . . as long as they're based on something I actually said (preferably right here, since I've said enough to give people the general drift of my positions) and not on something someone else SAYS I said, without doing me the courtesy of quoting me. That's how we play the "intelligent discussion" game, where I come from.
Last edited by L. Brown; 05/18/16 08:43 PM.
