LGF,
Let's see if I've got this right, an "estimated" 1.4 million Mississippi flyway waterfowl were saved from lead poisoning by the use of non-tox in 1997. Out of an "estimated" 90 million fowl, that amounts to 1.55% of the annual national population, am I correct? (And Please! bear in mind that the vagaries of mother nature (i.e. weather, disease, predation) frequently account for even bigger swings in a species annual mortality rate).
Conversely, can we assume that some of the same scientists have studied crippling and unrecovered waterfowl as a result of the less-efficient steel shot mandate of some twenty years now? Somehow, I don't think that's happened, but wouldn't it be interesting to compare those numbers? Maybe we are actually trading one form of mortality for another in all of this, as you do concede in your earlier post to witnessing a number of steel-caused "sailing cripples" on a recent duck hunt of yours. Whatever the number of cripples you might have seen that day, do you honestly believe that plumbism on that very same marsh of yours accounts for as many or even more wasted ducks - when that same shooting-related loss is spread over an entire season of three to four months?
Let's be honest here, losing any number of fowl needlessly should send up a 'red flag' not only for a conservationist but for most anybody with a conscience. But to simply substitute one form of mortality for another and call it a well-informed decision based on 'good science' somehow doesn't quite ring true with many sportsmen OR wildlife professionals in the field.
So, 'Why' did we waterfowlers, the 50-something percent that did not hang up our guns, passively roll over on that nation-wide ban and shoot steel- even when it could not be demonstrated that a majority of wetlands were keeping lead shot in a stratum available to feeding fowl? Perhaps it's because we were a bit more gullible back then, I don't know, but when the same hysteria is suggesting that it needs to now be applied to all upland and forested environs - not to mention controlled shooting ranges - and again, without the volume of science to back it up - then it's logical that there is some skepticism among us.
Let's be clear in that we are not even contesting the entrenched steel shot requirements for waterfowl here, as that is water long under the bridge. But we are perturbed that it is largely 'emotion' that is once again driving the push for a ban on all lead, in any form, without a conclusive body of evidence to support it -at least as yet, correct? If you, in fact, have access to evidence making a solid case for a broader nation-wide lead ban, and one that will seriously compromise such funding as Pittman-Robertson dollars, then we'd all like to hear about it just as soon as you get back from Kenya. Fair enough?
BTW, how far must one travel these days from the Berkeley campus to find good fowling?
Robert Harris
P.S. Yes, I am aware of the research on plumbic mourning doves that result from gritting on lead shot in the most heavily-used shooting areas, such as feed plots, etc. but am not sure if this yet warrants the draconian measures presently being suggested on a national level.
