Ted, if you come across a link to that Minneapolis newspaper op/ed, I wouldn't mind seeing what they have to say.
I am surprised to see how close the voting on this matter by sportsmen was in Wisconsin. I suppose those DNR meetings Larry tells us about were also attended by non-hunters too though. It's hard to believe that many hunters would voluntarily support banning lead and vote for using ballistically inferior shot which costs a lot more.
Keith, you're absolutely right. You don't have to show a hunting license to get into those meetings. They're open to anyone interested in the environment, from the greenest bird watcher to your standard issue redneck deer hunter.
Speaking of deer hunters--of which WI has several hundred thousand: The interesting thing about the proposed lead ban is that the "poster bird" has switched from waterfowl to bald eagles. As most folks know, bald eagles have made a miraculous recovery since DDT was banned and since we stopped shooting lead at waterfowl. But some of them are still getting sick and dying from ingesting lead. But examinations done on the birds almost always show that the lead in question comes from bullet fragments (eagles scavenge unrecovered deer), not lead shot. But the NRB knows better than to try and take on WI deer hunters. Lots more of them than upland hunters! So they propose something that will do at best very little to reduce eagle deaths from lead poisoning.
