doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lead Shot Ban in Montana

6000 hours times 12 gallons per hour times 2 grams of TEL equals 144,000 grams of TEL equals 323 pounds of lead equals 2,059,223 pellets of #8 shot scattered all over. I hope you didn't fly over any duck ponds.

Mike

Hey Amarillo:

Great quip on gang bangers needing a website. Really!

I'm completely speculating here, but probably the most likely source of high lead in urban pigeons compared to their rural bretherin is all the lead-based paint on peeling window sills, nesting and roosting sites (bridges, etc.), and perhaps to some extent from abandoned industrial sites.

All, as another somewhat tongue-in-cheek suggestion to the ongoing deniers, each of you has a chance to be a citizen scientist at home! Just take a loft of pigeons, Johnny house of Bobwhite, maybe a coop of chickens or pheasants, perhaps even your granddaughter's parakeet, cockatiel, or wife's parrot or macaw (caution- this can get expensive real quick), and just add lead shot.

Put a couple ounces in their grit tray or cup, maybe a square load of #8 from our favorite gauge the 16, a spreader load of #6, and a high brass load of #5... I'm talking a real smorgasbord here. Then just sit back and enjoy! Take careful notes... depending on the bird or situation you may have mortalities within hours or days. If breeding, you may see the chicks die, especially squab getting pumped full of pellets by the adults. Hens may stop laying. Some adults may grow listless, and even be cannibalized by their pen mates! There is just no end to the entertainment and learning opportunities for the whole family! Report back and tell us what you discover!

Seriously, I appreciate some of the discussion that is now occurring here. Nice to see people actually examining some of the record, picking it apart where they can, and saying "hmmm" where they can't. Much more valuable and instructive than just lobbing bombs at me. Maybe not nearly as much fun for you, but whatever...

Here is some more science:
Artmann, J.W., Martin, E.M., 1975. Incidence of ingested lead shot in Sora rails. J. Wildlife Manage. 39, 514–519.
Baksi, S.N., Kenny, A.D., 1978. Effect of lead ingestion on Vitamin D3 metabolism in Japanese quail. Res. Commun. Chem. Path.
Pharmacol. 21, 375–378.
Beintema, N.H., 2001. Lead poisoning in waterbirds. International
Update Report 2000. Wetlands International, Wageningen.
Best, T.L., Garrison, T.E., Schmitt, C.G., 1992. Availability and
ingestion of lead shot by mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) in
southeastern New Mexico. Southwestern Naturalist 37, 287–
292.

Some duck ponds I'm sure...and lot's of lakes and cities....the DC-6 and DC-7 burned 450 gallons an hour + (X-2500 hrs in these a/c) and at METO another 50++ per engine....so, lot's of #8 shot all over the place.....

Grouse Guy, why didn't you say to put lead shot in a one acre lot confine the birds in a flight pen.adjust the lead or the amount of birds and look at the results. it would be more accurate then putting lead in tweetys feed bowl. you also use the word MAY in all your descriptions of what WILL happen.a lot of studies use excessive amount in there analysis i.e. if you eat one ton of alfalfa a day your hair will grow back. m.c.

My wife feeds the birds. I have dozens of White Wing, Mourning, and Eur-Asian doves in my yard every day. Do you think any of that urban lead is getting into them? Could that be a major source of lead in dove?

Ben I could get the same effect only quicker by going out to my lease, trapping some quail, tying a string to one each of their legs, and tying them out to some bushes. The hawks would have them within a half hour. I have located covies this season by watching hawks work an area.

How about the bobcat I killed last year. I found a covey that had been busted up for some reason and then I found the bobcat in the epicenter of the singles.

Instead of making us switch shot couldn't we all pledge to shoot one quail harming varmint per season, wouldn't that be more effective in protecting grouse and flushing birds?

The effect of lead shot on grouse in the Montana wildlife areas is so small it is unmeasurable, it is negligible, it is miniscule, it is 1 divided by infinity.

Any of the following has 1000 times more effect on the Montana WMA birds than lead:

Weather
hawks
predators
nest raiders
hunters
parasites
microbial disease

Best,

Mike

Mike:

A lot of the points you make I can tell we could have a fascinating and largely agreeable conversation lasting late into the night. Save one... you think hunters affect upland birds? Even I won't bite off that one! You and probably your progeny will be getting nasty-grams into the 22nd century!

MC:

Good research idea. Just don't get a grant to fund it... Rob and Daryl will accuse you of bias!

Well said Mike, but again, these proposals to ban lead ammo aren't about lead poisoning. Like many others here, I can well afford to shoot a few boxes of bismuth for my hunting. But if and when we permit the liars like Grouse Guy to have their way, and lead ammo is banned (please go back and read the post from Belgium), it will quickly become ALL ammo. Simple supply and demand will dictate that the shells that are $3.00 a shot now will skyrocket to many times that amount. Shortages will be inevitable, even at the higher cost. And it won't just affect the relatively few rounds you use to hunt. They will use their junk science and hysteria to push for an overall ban that will include everything from .500 NE to the lowly .22 RF and even air rifle pellets. Imagine .22 LR at about $1.00 per round. How many average people will be able to afford to shoot? When our numbers fall, so will our strength and ability to preserve the Second Amendment. Oh, those skeet and trap ranges... they will be closed down and designated as toxic waste sites. Superfund cleanup areas. And where will we get the billions of dollars for the Hazmat clean-up? Why, we'll just have to put onerous taxes on guns and lead free ammo. So shooting will become even more unaffordable. Take a good hard look at the end game of Grouse Guy and his kind. Don't let them bullshit you. You all know the shooting sports are a very minor source of lead in our environment and that lead poisoning is rather low on the list of things that endanger humans or wildlife. They want our guns and will patiently attempt every kind of attrition possible. Again, Grouse Guy is not our friend. He is not one of us. He is the enemy and should be regarded as such.

So, if lead shot on the ground affects doves adversely, that would really be good news for the farmers around Cordoba, Argentina, where they are a virtual plague to the crops.

Luis Sier took me into his privately owned 1600 acre roost early one morning for a look-see. Amazing. He has a biologist come in once a year for several days to try and determine the overall health of the population by checking for disease, changes in the rates of death by other means and to estimate the total population, whether it is increasing or decreasing and by how much. He told me in 2003 that the population in that one roost was increasing by roughly one million per year. The total number at that time was around 25 million, in that roost alone. In 2008 that number was still increasing.

With the hundreds of thousands of rounds fired in the fields surrounding that roost each year it's a "wonder" he has any doves left, what with them eating all that lead every day.

Stan,

Your friend's biologist did not read all those studies?

He may have read them, but thankfully, the doves haven't!