doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com EPA bans lead shot use with depredation permits

Its the schmucks that kill recreationally with wonton waste that will end our sport.
I guess I fall into the group of SCHMUCKS since I am an avid varmint shooter. I enjoy going out west shooting P dogs and in the east woodchucks. Like anything a rancher would rather see you shoot a P dog town than poison it. Build a non tox bullet that will group sub minute of angle and many will follow. Of all the non tox bullets I have tried they can not hold together once you start pushing them at 3900fps and up. Groups were all over.

Then when I look at all the clubs I go to shoot at I see mountains of wads, lead that has never been cleaned up in years. Go figure since at the end of the day we all eat from the same table.

Piles of lead at a range is irrelevant. I'm not preaching that lead is poisoning the drinking water supplies or such nonsense. The issue is simple and will likely end the varmint hunter's sport:

Killing animals with lead bullets and leaving the carcasses in the field results in lead poisoning of wildlife. The raptors feed upon the dead and as I've said, only a piece of lead the size of a grain of rice is required to kill a raptor.

Most lead is non-leachable and doesn't wash into our water supplies from dirty range practices. This issue is solely related to fresh dead animals being contaminated with lead which are then consumed by predators.

Lead is already illegal in areas inhabited by the vast amount of California Condors (a whopping 71 of them remaining in existence last I checked). The Condors were eating varmint hunters left out kills.

This issue bothers me immensely because all it would take is 5 minutes of cleanup after a shoot and glad trash bag to protect the future of lead in shooting sports overall...yet the varmint hunters don't want to be told what to do. (and the uplander will pay the price for the varminter's habits...lead banned in all circumstances)

Larry, In GA crows have a season but, the regs say that they may be shot anytime they are doing crop damage. My son and I grow about 400 acres of peanuts a year, and there are over 1000 acres of pecan orchards within 8 miles of me. Crows do them tremendous damage. We shoot them year 'round. I once asked a game warden about the closed season on them and he replied with a question. Said he, "What are crows doing all the time?" I hesitated to answer, he winked and said, "Doing crop damage, going to do crop damage, or coming from doing crop damage. Shoot 'em anytime you want to."

We do. I'll use lead until he makes us quit.

Stan

P.S. We pick 'em up, rookhawk.

I live in a small town in Ohio where the city water comes to many and I SAY MANY homes from a water main to a curb stop and the service from the main to the curb is LEAD and no one is in a hurry to change it. Or not much if any concern. But watch out for the few poor birds.More birds will be killed by the cats which can roam free wherever in the hell they want and spray allover anything they want. Some people need to get out and see what this world is all about .

Rookhawk, I realize there's a problem with eagles dying from ingesting lead. That being said, have you looked at the statistics on eagles since the ban on lead for waterfowl and the elimination of DDT? Eagles have made a miraculous recovery and, as a species--unlike the condor--are doing just fine.

Raptor rehabilitators will tell you about the sick eagles they've had to deal with. But game managers have to focus on the welfare of SPECIES, not on the welfare of individual animals or birds. (If we were to start focusing on the welfare of individual animals and birds . . . well, that would be the end of hunting.) If overall eagle numbers are not declining--and there are far more bald eagles now than there were before lead shot was banned for waterfowl and before DDT was banned--then we're not dealing with a serious problem. Sure, varmint hunters can probably save an eagle here or there by picking up dead prairie dogs, but that isn't going to save all the eagles. I come from Iowa, where we don't have any large scale varmint hunting, and the raptor rehabilitators still report eagles with lead poisoning. Some of them likely get it from wounded deer that run off and die, and are then fed upon by eagles. Maybe the occasional pheasant as well. There's really no way to solve that, other than going to nontoxic bullets and slugs for deer and other big game, and nontoxic shot for upland game. But that switch would have a significantly negative impact on hunting, unless nontoxic bullets and shot as effective as lead and as cheap were available.

When federal authorities introduced the steel shot mandate in the 80's they forgot about the law or unintended consequences. The first effect was a significant loss of revenue, as much as 50%, from Duck Stamp sales as many hunters dropped out of the sport and never returned. The second effect was more ducks killed, steel shot as any veteran waterfowler knows is less effective than lead. Many more ducks were crippled, flying off to die later and the hunters just kept shooting until they filled their daily bag limit. Futher mandates of non-toxic shot and bullets will drive away more hunters and result in further revenue loss for wildlife agencies already struggling with the reduced funding from reduced license sales. It's classic, wildlife agencies passing regulation after regulation and then funding studies to find out why is participation and funding declining. They respond to the decline with ineffective marketing campaigns and programs such as Becoming An Outdoor Woman not realizing they are their own worst enemy.

I think the discussions on this thread are both constructive and point to reasonable problems with the solutions proposed as well.

To dissect the points mentioned in pieces:

1. Totally agree with L. Brown about management of SPECIES and not individuals of an ecosystem. I am a licensed raptor rehabillitator as my nom de plume perhaps suggests. The rehabillitation of one raptor is inconsequential to the wild population and it's habitat (the two are inseparable), but it is of major impact to the person who discovers the injured wildlife, brings it in and finds new appreciation for its value in the ecosystem. Rehabillitation is positive PR, but it makes no positive impact to the wild populations.

2. Bald eagles are of NO RISK in the wild ecosystem. Dare I say, they are now at nuisance levels in some areas and in only 25 years time, we went from seriously endangered levels to having more Bald Eagles in North America than at any previous time in recorded history. Pretty awesome when you think about it.

3. The real birds of issue as a species that are directly culpable to hunters with bad habits (in part) are the Western raptors that feed on ground squirrels and prarie dogs. Golden Eagles and Ferruginous Hawks being two indicator species that feast on piles of lead riddled quarry only to become deathly ill a few days later. The science is settled on Man's cause of these birds demise due to lead isotope analysis proving the lead ingested by raptors is alloyed lead refined for use in bullets and shot. Sloppy hunters will be our own undoing.

4. Golden Eagles are in a position over the long term for more perilous survivability than are Bald Eagles. Bald Eagles are opportunistic and adaptable to changing ecosystems and can live on fish or waterfowl with eagle acumen almost anywhere in America.

5. I agree with the points of unintended consequences. I generally am a free-market minded person with libertarian leanings...Many hunters are. The one benefit of government regulation forcing our hands towards non-toxic shot and copper bullets is that the increased prices will cause more cautious shot placement and more thoughtful hunting. Do I think there will be more detrimental consequences? Yes. It will probably price many hunters out of their sport altogether when 20 rifle cartridges cost $60 for copper bulleted varieties.

In conclusion, while the problems are many and the solutions are complex, one thing prevails upon us as hunters:

If we clean up our gut piles and carcasses removing them from the field, we individually will not be part of the problem. On the whole, hunters and sportsmen are the most conservation minded people on the planet. We need to self-regulate and encourage positive habits so the bureaucrats don't step in and crush us with laws that could have been enforced by good etiquette amongst hunters instead.

I have no problem with the implementation of a regulation requiring the removal of shot varmint carcasses from the field. Unfortunatly the regulation of concern is a ban on lead ammunition. I have shot a few groundhogs in the past and have seen buzzards on them and concede the point, I will, in the future, remove them from the fields. My concern is that even if all voluntarily do this or a regulation is made requiring it, it will not deter lead shot/bullet bans. I believe there is a certain undisclosed and sinister motive. That is why the issue is being presented to the EPA and the F&WL instead of hunting groups and game management departments. Of course here in PA our game commision asked for a license to study dove populations and it must be a very indepth study as the fee still exists. The dove population has dropped (my opinion) and a lead shot ban has been suggested. The PGA says dove number are stable, but someone thinks we need a lead shot ban. I think the reason doves around here are down is that all the old strip mine areas that were replete with water puddles, goldenrod and fox grass are now covered with houses. But thats another environmental issue. I believe the lead ban is coming and I was hoping to shoot my 22rf alot in my old age.

I'm no varmint hunter but have always thought it was a good win-win situation. Ranchers hate varmints. Varmint hunters shoot varmints. Everybody�s happy.

Apparently some of you are not happy. �The western US varmint hunter is to blame the most for loss of gun privileges in this case.� Really?

I get the message that you don�t particularly care for varmint hunting or the AR tactical schmucks. Neither do I. Still, it�s easy to be overly critical of activities we don�t personally enjoy.

Perhaps varmint hunting should not be called hunting. More accurately it is pest control. Call it by its correct name and all this business of wanton waste and recreational killing goes away. I�m not sure a varmint hunter can engage in wanton waste. At the end of the day the goal is extermination. Bullets or poison = same result.

While I have no interest in AR rifles or prairie dog shooting, I�m troubled by traditionalists often being quick to pass judgment about the respectability of the AR varmint types. They enjoy something different than members of this forum. That�s fine. I�m glad they kill some vermin. I�m not sure they kill enough to make an appreciable difference, but let them try. More hunters should shoot coyotes, crows, prairie dogs, pigeons, raccoons, skunks, and a host of other pests.

Finally, is the varmint hunter's quarry really all that lead riddled? I�m not sure I buy it. I would think a .223 would go clean through a prairie dog 99% of the time. How much bullet remains stay in the prairie dog? I�m skeptical. Someone can educate me. I would think crippled upland game would carry far more lead.

As for gut piles: Am I really expected to cart deer guts home for safe disposal? Seriously?

Shotguns have a way out with non toxic shot performing as good or better than lead except for the cost but how do you replace rifle bullets? We are a stationary target and ripe for pot shots from all quarters, they won't stop until they stop all hunting and the shooting sports. Their ploy now it semms is to make it so expensive that the majority of hunters will just plain quit, just like in waterfowl.