doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lead & Condor deaths

This, in a nutshell, is what I find troubling. The fact that lead fragments can be recovered occasionally from carrion, does not mean it was the source of a lab measurable level of lead taken from a live healthy condor, or a recovered dead, from undisclosed causes, condor. You, yourself, mentioned that an average level of lead has been determined nationwide, in humans. I believe in California there are many water and ground sources tainted naturally with heavy metals that enter the entire wildlife food chain.

Still, there're friends of shooting and hunting that strongly support the notion that any lead trace found out in the woods are from lead hunting bullets. If lead traces can be found in humans, why can't the mantra, from friends, be, 'it may be that an occasional condor lab sample shows traces of lead, it's natural and not from lead sporting bullets'.

Yup.

All that lead in the environment could just as easily - probably more easily - be from atmospheric sources as anything else. For example, good old tetraethyl lead in gasoline. Or trace amounts occurring naturally in coal.
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There's a theory out there that goes something like this: there has been a noticeable decrease in the rates of violence pretty much across the world, a decline going back to the 80s. There does not seem to be any statistically valid correlation to age distributions in populations, wealth distribution, harsher prison sentences, more lenient prison sentences, drug policy or anything else. Except the banning of lead from gasoline, which resulted in an immediate decline in atmospheric lead levels and which does seem to correlate pretty directly to the decline in violence.
Of course, this is "new" scientific theory and has to be tested.
But it also means that particulate lead - i.e., projectiles from sporting arms - is also pretty much out of the equation.
But not to worry, that just means the antis will come out with some other reason to ban hunting.

Cattle ranches appear to be the most likely source of lead tainted carcasses and guts that are consumed by Condors and other scavenging raptors. Hunter's gut piles might be a concern if hunters were routinely gut shooting their game. They are not.

Check out this link to "The Cattle Site", a veterinary website specializing in medical disorders in cattle, that says:

"Lead is the most common cause of cattle poisoning. Animals die or perform poorly after accidentally ingesting lead. Gradual poisoning may also occur in areas with heavy industrial pollution."
- See more at: http://www.thecattlesite.com/diseaseinfo/217/lead-poisoning/#sthash.ka5vfFcK.dpuf

Then check out the map of California Lead Mines found here:

http://www.us-mining.com/california/lead-mines

Vast areas of California have been stripped by hydraulic mining, removing the surface soils that covered lead and other minerals. Dave-in-Maine has mentioned several other likely sources of lead that are much more bio-available than a relative few bullet fragments in lost game or gut piles. I gotta agree with craigd. We all need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot by blindly accepting the crap that is being put up as evidence by those with an anti-hunting and anti-gun agenda.

We really need to invest in developing lasers. pew pew.

(sorry, I couldn't resist)

Keith, the majority of road-killed deer I saw in northern Wisconsin had bald eagles doing the cleanup. Our problem in that part of the country, obviously not related to condors, didn't have anything to do with either cattle or gut piles. Rather, with wounded and unrecovered deer. That's where the eagles were picking up the lead fragments. Unfortunately, the WI Natural Resources Board thought the solution was to ban lead SHOT on all DNR controlled lands . . . when there was no real evidence of eagles ingesting lead shot, now that we're no longer shooting lead at waterfowl. But bird hunters were an easier target than deer hunters. However, we were fortunate enough to shoot down that idea before it became policy.

Might ought to tell Isis about this new and stupid theory....

Repeated quite regularly. Is the only route of lead poisoning rifle bullet fragments from unrecovered game? In Wisconsin, is there a chance that the majority of Bald eagles have migrated due to seasonal cooling by the time gun deer season starts? Wisconsin's gun deer hunting season is relatively short, are eagles free of exposure to lead the remaining eleven plus months of the year? Is lead poisoning from fragments the cause of death, or is there the coincidental presence of an occasional rifle bullet fragment, but undisclosed cause of death?

Since you have concluded that the cause of death of Bald eagles is lead poisoning specifically from ingested rifle bullet fragments, how come conclusions can't be questioned?

Larry, I wasn't talking about bald eagles. I was talking about condors. But I did not know there were no cows in Wisconsin. I wonder where all that cheese comes from??? But you seem determined to make the case that lead poisoning in bald eagles is caused by lead bullets from hunter's wounded and lost game. I guess we need to ask you for the same proof that we should be asking the other anti-hunters about.

So many bald eagles. Wow! One or more feeding on the majority of road killed deer in northern Wisconsin. That's a LOT of birds. They hardly sound threatened or endangered when you tell us that story. The 'possums, crows, magpies, and other carrion eaters must all be starving from being pushed aside by this gigantic population of lead-starved eagles.

I think it's time to throw the B.S. flag on this one. With so many eagles eating so much road-killed deer meat, it would stand to reason the more likely source of lead in their systems is from automotive paint chips. But I don't believe that either. Now how about showing us those poisoned eagles containing bullet fragments from hunter's guns. I'm talking fragments of lead, copper jackets, little plastic Nosler ballistic tips, etc., not some blood tests from the Audobons. We've already discussed the invalidity of isotopic analysis and the poor bio-availability of chunks of lead which soon pass through the digestive system. So let's see your forensic evidence done by non-agenda driven pathologists.

This is what I meant when I said we all need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot over this issue. Shotgunners placing the blame upon riflemen or vice-versa isn't going to prevent the eventual ban on all lead ammunition.

First of all, bald eagles are not endangered. Not even threatened. Since we got rid of DDT and stopped shooting lead shot at waterfowl (eagles do a lot of hunting/scavenging around bodies of water), they've made a miraculous recovery. IF we managed eagles the same way we manage other species--which is by the overall health of the SPECIES, not the INDIVIDUAL ANIMAL--there wouldn't be any concern about eagles. Their numbers are not declining. Matter of fact, they're still increasing. Thus, from a wildlife science standpoint, we really shouldn't be concerned about the deaths of a few individual eagles, no matter the cause.

However, the public does not look at eagles that way. Concern about them stems from the facts that a) they are highly visible; and b) they're our national symbol. So, unfortunately, we can't just blow it all off by saying: "A few eagles more or less . . . what difference does it make?" The antis will always make hay out of anything they can. And unfortunately, they can use that attitude against us, very effectively--because it resonates with a lot of non-hunters. (And this country has WAY more non-hunters--on the fence/don't care about the issue one way or the other--than it has either hunters or antis. No need to help the antis draw more non-hunters to their side by showing a callous regard for dead eagles. It's just plain bad PR.

As for the situation in Wisconsin . . . Keith, the northern third or so of the state isn't much for farming. The rest of the state is a different story. Northern WI grows mostly trees, not cows. And SW WI does have old lead mines, and it does have dairy farms. So possible connection there? Sure. But that's a long ways from "Up North". Automotive paint chips in road-killed deer? It's my understanding they got the lead out of auto paint about a decade plus or so ago. So I guess maybe if it's an old car. As for other possible sources of lead . . . of course lead bullets aren't the only one. But we do kill a lot of deer in Wisconsin, and others get shot and go unrecovered. And there's no shortage of evidence that eagles will scavenge dead deer. For information on lead showing up in eagles, you can google eagles x rays lead poisoning. Evidence with which you can either agree . . . or not. You can say that the evidence is "agenda driven" . . . but then we're pretty "agenda driven" ourselves here, aren't we? I made a very strong case for retaining lead shot in a two-part article I wrote on the subject for Pointing Dog Journal a few years back, and I don't feel any differently now. But I included evidence from both sides, didn't start with the assumption that everyone who opposes lead is an anti. They're not . . . and Audubon certainly is not squarely in the anti-hunting camp. I can provide personal experience on that one, should anyone wonder.

Migration . . . no, eagles are still around during gun deer season in Wisconsin.

Hey Larry...