Larry, you are being much to simple minded about eagles as you well know.
I agree that the jury is out on all kinds of things but that accidental ingestion of lead shot was an important source of mortality in waterfowl, eagles, condors, and perhaps doves is not. For other birds, hard to say just yet. The definitive data on population level responses is hard beyond belief to get - and expensive.
Larry, have you ever watched winter eagles in places like Kansas, or even the east coast of Iowa? One of their staple foods is duck - wounded or otherwise, but wounded particularly. I have watched them countless times in Kansas where I was ducking in the 80s.
Brent
Brent, I'm not quite sure what you're saying. I think we may even agree. "Scientific evidence" on whether secondary lead shot ingested from eating carrion kills eagles may indeed have been accurate. May indeed still be accurate. But there is also very CLEAR evidence that whatever it was that used to kill eagles, there are a lot more of them around now than there were 20-25 years ago. They have recovered remarkably, as an endangered species.
So would you not agree that that is evidence that CURRENT restrictions on lead shot have worked, as far as eagles are concerned? And that in fact, the evidence offered by the eagle recovery would seem to indicate that again, as far as eagles are concerned, there really isn't any reason to expand lead shot restrictions? Further lead shot restrictions may indeed make sense to protect the condor, and in areas of concentrated dove hunting. But surely no one in his right mind can continue to use the eagle, given its recovery, as TODAY's poster bird for further lead shot restrictions.
Last edited by L. Brown; 01/29/08 06:28 PM.
