The lead danger to humans was raised several years back. CDC did a study in North Dakota, where the issue was raised by an individual with connections to the Peregrine Fund. Turned out that those who participated in the study and said they ate game shot with lead did have higher levels of lead in their blood than those who did not. HOWEVER . . . the AVERAGE lead level of EVERYONE in the study--with a very high proportion (something like 80%) stating that they ate game shot with lead--was lower than the national blood lead level. Much ado about not much, unless you eat one heck of a lot of game shot with lead, or maybe consciously swallow lead shot (which is pretty easily removed).
As far as wildlife goes, the waterfowl problem (and the eagle problem) have been solved since we went to nontox for ducks. Bald eagles have made a remarkable recovery, even though raptor rehabilitators still find the occasional eagle that's suffering from lead poisoning--mostly, it would appear, from wounded and unrecovered deer. (You see a roadkill deer here in Wisconsin, you're more likely to see eagles on it than either vultures or crows.) And there's no proof, with the exception of doves on very heavily hunted areas, that the ingestion of lead shot poses a problem for upland game. The biologists theorize that some upland birds do ingest lead pellets, from which they get sick and die. But they haven't had much luck finding the evidence to support that theory.
Yet another issue of particular interest to this group is that those promoting a lead ban aren't telling the truth about steel and shotguns. Many of us hunt with guns in which we can't, or shouldn't, shoot steel. Which means that if lead were banned, we'd either have to hang up our vintage guns or else switch to extremely expensive nontox alternatives to steel. And some of the guns in question aren't really "vintage". For example, Browning recommends no steel in any of its Belgian-made guns. Not in Superposeds, A-5's, Double Autos, etc. Hundreds of thousands of which were produced after WWII.
