Ben, we've been shooting pheasants in Iowa for about 85 years now. Hundreds of Iowa roosters . . . I'm a bit beyond that. I don't normally focus on season bags, but I once went into 3 figure range in a single season, wild birds only, without ever leaving the state. And of all the pheasants I've cleaned--that's a bunch of autopsies, because I also guided on wild pheasants for 4 years, and cleaned my hunters' birds for them--the only unhealthy roosters I can ever recall were ones that suffered from lead poisoning. However, that lead poisoning came from lead pellets they'd been SHOT with (old, nonfatal wounds), not any other cause I was unable to identify (like ingested lead).

Here's what I'm looking for, in specific: A study on upland birds (wild only, please) that were found dead (NOT shot) in typical upland settings--either private or public ground, but not preserves--and which died as a result of having ingested lead. Anything else, as far as the POTENTIAL impact of lead on upland birds, is pretty much that: POTENTIAL, unproven as far as mortality goes. All other studies are either of no relevance, or marginal relevance. Eagles . . . we have so many more of them than we did 25 years ago that we're bound to find more of them sick or injured than we used to. But their numbers also continue to increase, which means whatever is harming them is a threat only to INDIVIDUAL birds, not the population as a whole--which means we should pay no more attention to it than we do to deer hit by cars (where we only worry about the people in the vehicles, not the deer).

Can you cite any research that meets the above requirements?