doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com non-toxic factory dove loads for 16 ga

I have cleaned one hell of a lot of doves over the last 60+ years and I have NEVER found a lead pellet in a dove's crop. Of course, I have not been looking for lead pellets but I do look at what they have been eating to get some idea of where they have been. The linked article is not even junk science. There is virtually no science in the article.

I don't see much in a superficial scan of the literature that suggests where the estimate comes from. Someone that really wants to know would want to contact the author for the reference.



If you can see this, you might want to look at an old (1968) paper in JWM

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3798925.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Af02c0884df27abd871237c5de0a992f4

LEAD SHOT INGESTION BY MOURNING DOVES
AND INCIDENCE IN SOIL
JAMES C. LEWIS, Tennessee Game and Fish Commission, Nashville1
EUGENE LEGLER, JR., Tennessee Game and Fish Commission, Nashville
Abstract: Biologists in Tennessee collected 1,949 gizzards from doves harvested on fields managed for public hunting. One percent of the doves had ingested between 1 and 24 lead shot. Pre- and post-hunt soil samples were collected from a field with a history of 8 years of managed public doves hooting. In the top % inch of soil there were 10,890 shot per acre before the September 1 and 2 hunt. The post-hunt sample indicated 43,560 shot per acre in the top 3/8 inch.



More recently (2006) there is this in Biological Conservation
Volume 131, Issue 3, August 2006, Pages 421-432.

A review of lead poisoning from ammunition sources in terrestrial birds
Author links open overlay panelIan J.FisheraDeborah J.PainaVernon G.Thomasb
Show more
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2006.02.018Get rights and content
Abstract
Poisoning from lead shot in waterbirds has been well documented globally and, in some countries, legislation exists to combat lead toxicosis at wetlands and/or in waterbirds. However, poisoning of terrestrial species such as raptors and upland game birds, while of potential conservation concern, remains largely to be addressed. For several species, shot are not the only ammunition source of lead, as bullet fragments can be ingested from hunter-killed animal carcasses and gut piles left in the field. This review collates the current knowledge of lead poisoning from ammunition in non-waterbirds. Fifty-nine terrestrial bird species have so far been documented to have ingested lead or suffered lead poisoning from ammunition sources, including nine Globally Threatened or Near Threatened species. We discuss the conservation significance of continued lead use, and detail measures needed to combat lead poisoning.

The 9-15 million thing in the pop-literature article "suggests" to me that they are looking at a statistical estimate with a 95% Confidence interval, but that's just a guess. I have not tracked my way into this article from here.

I don't doubt 9-15 million die each year from lead poison but it not by eating it, that they die from. It is from the lead pellets traversing their bodies, hitting important areas as they go. I have never cleaned a dove who has had a pellet which was not fatal and that they healed from it. I am sure a few might happen but not many. Most non fatal hits have to go through non vital areas or be so superficial that they rarely are retain in the bird. So even lead poisoning from pellet hits I suspect is a rare thing.

Evey consider the lottery odds of a pellet falling into an area that a dove will be eating? Probably have a better chance hitting the Powerball and Mega millions lottery the same week.

Ky Jon,

Read the last sentence of the first abstract.

Whether you believe or not, that's up to you. I tend to believe BUT I started reloading non-toxics so I won't be sitting home knashing my teeth over the fact that I can't hunt because I don't have non-toxic ammo, I'll be out hunting. I have two coyote hunting rifles all dialed in with non-toxics just incase or I go to a state that requires it. I use them regularly but still hunt coyotes with lead also until I need to change.

For 2.5" 16ga non-toxic for and old shotgun, MEC is your friend. I have a 600 set up with a short shell kit that I load bismuth for waterfowl or you can just roll crimp new hulls and hand fill them, either buy 2.5" hulls or cut down 2.75. Most 2.75" data will fit in a roll crimped 2.5" hull. I always try to err on the light side of pressure and keep my shells as mild as possible. It is easier to wait for a bird to get 10 yards closer than to repair a fine old shotgun.

I think natural mortality of nestlings and juveniles is high for most small birds. So deaths from manmade causes like collisions with cars, towers, hunting, poisoning, etc. would be additive to the annual rate. I've heard it said that 70% of all birds alive in July are dead by December, but that surely has to be an estimate.

This crap posted by BrentD should be saved to serve as an example of the junk science that is perpetrated, propagated, and posted by anti-lead advocates.

If we assumed that there was no hunting and no lead shot deposition on this field managed for public hunting for 8 years, the author gives a pellet count of 10,890 pellets per acre in the top "%" inch of soil. I assume that "%" is a typo, and it should have been "3/8" of an inch, as in the later sample count.

Then after the Sept. 1 and 2 hunt, the total amount of shot deposited per acre increase by EXACTLY 400%... to the pellet.

Read that again... 10,890 pellets per acre over 8 years would be an average of 1,361.25 pellets per acre per year. Then in season 9, an additional 32,760 pellets per acre was added. And the total shot per acre in that field exactly quadrupled in just one short two day season. But the yearly average, assuming there was no hunting there prior to the 8 years of managed dove hunting, increased by over 24 times in just one short season.

I think the real reason for this study may be that there is psychological research being conducted to see how many people are stupid enough to believe anything, no matter how outlandish.

What exactly were the authors of this junk science trying to say??? Did someone go around with a Shop Vac and vacuum up the shot from previous years, or did the doves eat it all??? Or did the authors just assume that readers would all be stupid enough to swallow any horseshit that they made up and printed???

Then, if we look at the American Bird Conservancy article posted by skeetx, that study claims more than 75,000 lead pellets per acre of managed dove field in just one season. That so-called study went on to say that a dove ingesting just one lead pellet is essentially a dead dove. Yet nobody that spends a lot of time in dove habitat is reporting millions of doves either dead, or suffering from fatal doses of lead poisoning. This is as mysterious as the millions of sick ducks and geese that suddenly stopped getting sick right after anti-lead advocates got what they wanted.

Now, remember that lead is a very persistent element in nature. Lead bullets and fragments from Civil war battlefields are encrusted in a hard oxide layer, and have not dissolved. Lead objects from the Roman Empire are still recovered largely intact. And lead pellets from before the Federal lead shot ban from waterfowl are still on the bottoms of oceans, lakes, and wetlands.

The American Bird Conservancy site also has this page about the over one BILLION birds that die annually from crashing into windows.

https://abcbirds.org/get-involved/bird-smart-glass/

Those who are concerned about bird mortality would be better off working to eliminate window glass, than switching to ballisticly inferior non-lead ammunition

And anyone who buys the crap BrentD posted needs to have their heads examined.

....But BrentD swallows it hook, line, and sinker.

'68, and then there's a lapse in 'data' till '06? There's was an environmental symposium just a couple of days ago with cutting edge speakers. In fact, about fifty something of them got arrested at the hahvad n yale football game.

Yeah I read it. It�s crap. When they talk about pellets in the top inch you need to call bull shit right there. No dove is going to be digging up to an inch for a seed or grit and get a shot by mistake. If it is not surface it does not matter. This is just more junk science. If you look at the assumption they make it always falls on a worst case because it supports their viewpoint from the beginning.

Now if you wanted to get some real date fo down to the dove fields in Argentina. There you will find lead shot. But you are talking about industrial output instead of just a few days a year. And most done field a only get heavy use a couple days a year.