Keith is correct on the total insolubility of elemental lead in water.
It is the free lead ions that have been shown to be powerful neurotoxins that damage tissues, organs, immune systems and reproductive systems in animals.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485653/I never claimed that lead is not a neurotoxin in birds, or mammals for that matter. My point was to say that virtually all lead shot deposited on a field will still be there a hundred years from now. The problem is vastly overblown by anti-lead ammunition advocates like BrentD. The very worst source of bio-available lead in the environment was stopped when we went to unleaded gasoline for vehicles. And there were many other sources of millions of tons of bio-available lead such as paints, pesticides, other chemicals, dust and fumes from smelters before pollution controls, etc.
KY Jon was correct about the sheer amount of lead shot-fall on Argentinian dove fields versus here in the U.S. He is also correct to point out that any lead shot that has sunk even 1/4 or 3/8 of an inch below the surface is lead shot that will never be ingested by a dove. And any tillage in an agricultural field is going to cause a lot more dense lead shot to go deeper over time than it leaves on the surface. Lead is known to cause reproductive harm, yet doves in Argentina continue to fly healthy and reproduce by the hundreds of millions. Several guys here who have dove hunted there have also witnessed eagles that feast upon doves wounded by lead shot, without any apparent dire threat to the survival of the species.
BrentD obviously still doesn't have any suspicions about the data in the abstract he posted yesterday. He doesn't see anything unusual in the numbers, where the total amount of shot in the top 3/8 inch of soil precisely quadrupled (to the pellet!) in just one short two day hunt, and the amount deposited in the last hunt was 24 times the previous annual average.
It should be obvious that the so-called researchers were simply pulling numbers out of the air, and hoping everyone was stupid enough to swallow the obvious horse shit.
I can remember all those gut wrenching pictures of supposedly lead poisoned ducks and geese before the Federal lead shot ban was enacted. The lead shot that was used in those areas has not been cleaned up, and it did not go away. If any "free ions" from over a century of lead shot use were problematic, as Hal has suggested, then the death and dying should still be happening on a grand scale. Yet the lead poisoning epidemic in waterfowl somehow pretty much just stopped all of a sudden. And lets not forget that many of those ducks and geese are still doing an annual migration, and spending significant time in countries where lead shot has not been banned for waterfowl. Now the new poster-child has become eagles that supposedly eat deer gut piles and varmint carcasses that are filled with lead bullet fragments.
Lead ammo bans are nothing more than a back-door approach to gun control. Making the cost of shooting prohibitive will naturally lower participation in the shooting sports, and slowly change the culture to one that is more likely to accept gun control. The dots are there, if you are intelligent enough to connect them.
