Originally Posted By: BrentD
Larry, a lot of people have a lot of different motivations for getting into the lead shot/bullet issue. If you continue to lump them all into one group, you will miss the boat. Lead in meat we eat is quite different in effect than the same lead in meat that raptors might eat. Which, of course, you know quite well, but seem to wish to avoid acknowledging.

Your vocabulary tells me you have already made up your mind sans data of course.



Brent, I was in the threat analysis business, as an intelligence officer, for a very long time. I don't believe in ignoring ANY threat. We focused on the Soviet Union as THE bogeyman for a long time, and they certainly presented the most serious threat in terms of the harm they could do. But it was not the Soviet Union that attacked us on 9/11. We could say that "data" is irrelevant when it is either nonexistent (as the MNDNR's Nontoxic Shot Advisory Committee admits, when it comes to threats to wildlife) or proves the opposite of what the lead opponents are trying to prove (as in the ND study, showing that eating meat shot with lead poses at worst a minimal threat to humans), but that's the "data" the lead opponents will continue to use. In spite of the best "good science", they'll continue to toss the kitchen sink in our direction. If we ignore their "data", no matter how specious it may be, we're essentially yielding the floor to them. So far, what's kept us from having more unnecessary nontoxic requirements has been hunters and shooters, making noise to local politicians--as you should know very well, from what happened in Iowa just this year. Twice, in fact. If anything, we need to increase the volume.