doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lead and wildlife: 52 reports on impacts

Dick:

My name is at the top of this thread. And we haven't written or compiled a report. You still confused?

NWF hasn't issued a press release on lead in the last year, your suggestion you got one from NWF was characterized as "baloney".

What are you shooting all those ducks with in your stories? Lead? Or are they just stories?

I'm still waiting for your report to us after you read all (some? any?) of the science provided.

Regards,
Ben

Deleted - Double Post.

I poked around a bit with google and the referenced works. This is the only actual raw data I found that applied to my hunting. They shot and killed Blues (quail), Bobwhites, and dove around stock tanks in Southeastern New Mexico in 1985, 1986, and 1987. From the abstract paragraph:

Out of 226 scaled quail they found one with a lead pellet in the gizzard.

Out of 111 Bobwhites they found two with lead pellets in their gizzards.

They found about 5% had lead in their livers of at least 7 parts per million. I don't know the rate at which lead gets to be a problem for quail but it is obviously not a big problem for upland game in the Southwest.

I am not sure what they mean but they state that quail in Southeastern New Mexico have easy access to lead. That may mean that there is a lot of lead in the enviroment. They do mention the gravel at the side of the roads as a possible source of lead. I guess that that source has certainly been diluted in the last twenty years and the elimination of lead from gasoline.

http://www.auburn.edu/cosam/departments/biology/faculty/webpages/best/PDFs/1992aBestEtAl.pdf

I will concede that it did surprise that they even found one bird with pellets in it gizzard, much less three. I would have guessed one in a million birds on any given day would have a lead pellet in their gizzard.

Grouse Guy Ben Deeble is a flake. We have been through this before with this guy. He has NO credibility in the State of Montana, is a proven warper of facts to suit his own agenda. It is a waste of keystrokes to debate with him as his comprehension level is earthworm grade. Go away Deeble, no takers here...

I must be drinking, your name is Susan Whaley, public relations coordinator?

"NWF hasn't issued a press release on lead in the last year"

The main subject was not lead but it was alleged in the release. You are ignorant or a liar. Since you refuse to tell us who you work for, you must have some reluctance to lie so I'll assume the former.

If I had been using lead, there would have probably been more ducks.

I can assure you, Susan or Ben, or whoever you are, that this just makes you look silly and you're not fooling anyone.

Here is my most recent story on lead: It's possible that the links may not be current, I ran this story a couple of months ago.

Notice the tactics used by the poser who pretended to be a hunter. Remind you of anyone?

The new Issue for the Anti Hunting Groups, Lead

As if hunters and shooters didn’t have enough targets on their backs, there is a new and dangerous issue looming on the horizon. Recently, there have been press releases coming from animal rights and environmental groups alleging that hunters and shooters are polluting the earth with lead bullets and lead shot and that meat donated through organizations like Hunters for the Hungry is causing a health hazard for those consuming it. As with many extreme movements, California is in the lead.

In December 2007, California banned the use of ammunition containing lead in the parts of the state that are in the range of the California Condor (about 20% of the state). The reason given was that condors were dying of lead poisoning though there was no definite evidence that the lead poisoning came from lead from ammunition. The ban includes centerfire rifle and pistol ammunition and 22 rimfire ammunition used in the taking of nongame animals. Starting July 1, the new rules ban the use and possession of bullets containing more than 1 percent lead in condor country. A violation by a hunter is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.

Some condors have shown elevated levels of lead, a naturally occurring element found in batteries, light bulbs, paint chips and many other items commonly found in condor nests; incidentally, these lead-based items have never been tested as a possible source of elevated lead levels in condors. This is especially noteworthy when one considers that there is no credible scientific evidence to support the notion that higher lead levels in condors are due to the ingestion of ammunition fragments. Regardless of the fact the law is not based on science, it stands.

In the Midwest, the issue concerned the consumption of venison shot with jacketed lead bullets. In a statement issued December 3rd, after X-ray tests detected lead fragments in venison samples collected from meat processors, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture announced it will now X-ray all deer meat donated to food shelves under the Minnesota Hunter Harvested Venison Donation Program. This will add an additional 25 cents per pound to the processing cost of the donated meat. This new policy was based on a North Dakota study that claimed that 30% of donated meat contained lead fragments and constituted a health hazard.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation was critical of the North Dakota Department of Health when the Department
overreacted to a non-peer reviewed study by a dermatologist who claimed to have collected packages of venison from food banks that contained lead fragments. North Dakota health officials did not conduct their own study, but merely accepted the lead-contaminated meat samples from the dermatologist. The ND Department of Health then ordered all food banks to discard their venison. Serious questions were raised in a subsequent investigative journalism piece published this summer about the scientific validity of the testing of venison samples from the ND food pantries, including concerns regarding the non-random selection of the samples.

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, it has since come to light that the dermatologist's efforts were not the independent actions of a concerned hunter, as he claimed. It was an orchestrated strategy by the Peregrine Fund -- an organization dedicated to eliminating the use of lead ammunition for hunting. The dermatologist serves on the Fund's Board of Directors.

Now, Minnesota is set to test up to 25,000 pounds of venison intended for food banks in the state, having the meat X-rayed before it is distributed. The decision came when random testing revealed that 5.3 percent of sampled deer meat contained “lead fragments.” The end result is that, in a time when the food donated by hunters is most needed, the cost of processing it has been almost doubled.

Despite there being no scientific evidence to support the hypothesis that lead ammunition is endangering the health of individuals or that lead from hunters bullets has anything to do with the lead found in the California Condor, anti-hunting interest groups are continuing to press state legislatures around the country to support a ban on traditional ammunition. These politically driven groups understand that while an outright ban on hunting would be nearly impossible to achieve, dismantling the culture of hunting one step at a time is a substitute goal. Banning lead ammunition is a first step -- a step that is literally taking the food out of the mouths of the hungry, unnecessarily, to advance a political agenda.

To access the National Shooting Sports Foundations lead information go to nssf.org, click on Member Services and access the Lead Ammunition bar under Fast Facts

To see the National Rifle Association’s position on these issues go to nra.org and click on Top News Stories

Dear Dick:

Three studies poorly refuted by your "writing" fails to impress. I mean, if this is so important to you, couldn't you be a little more thorough?

Maybe not, because you apparently can't even digest this thread.

Maybe I shouldn't ask you to report back to us.... OK, don't.

Last Dollar, you ever been to Montana? I didn't think so.

Cheers,
Ben

Grouse Guy is a hard core B Hussien supporting liberal.

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbt...true#Post119756

He needs to be outed for what he is; NO friend to hunters or gun owners.

[quote=Dick Jones otp]I must be drinking, your name is Susan Whaley, public relations coordinator? /quote]

Dick, Thanks for the reprint of your article which is a pretty good synopsis of U.S. lead ban developments in the past year or two.

The fellow you are trying to have a discourse with is Ben Deeble, a regional bird biologist with the National Wildlife Federation, based out of Missoula, MT. He is also the past president and active board member of an upland conservation organization called Big Sky Upland Bird Assoc., also out of Missoula. This is the group who directors, at Ben's behest, forwarded a lead phase-out study resolution that Deeble drafted for the Montana Wildlife Federation for action and delivery to our state FWP people. Details of all of this can be read either by using the links Amarillo Mike copied for us in this thread, or by looking at our individual message profiles. Too much to go through again here....yet 'Thanks' to those of you who helped to reveal here what we're dealing with re: this agenda.


Rob Harris

Grouse Guy you obviously have an agenda. The threads you started here recently leave no doubt. By the way, I think it is perfectly acceptable to have an agenda. Could you be a little more specific on what your point is? Do you want Sage Grouse hunters to quit using lead? Do you want deer hunters to quit using lead or do you want Sora Rail hunters to quit using lead (isn't that already done - migratory waterbird)? Do you want Pheasant hunters in Soutwestern Kansas to quit using lead? Do you want Bobwhite hunters in Texas to quit using lead? Or is it Clays clubs? Or is it White Wing hunters in South Texas pass shooting dove?

Or is it all of these?

About half of the domestic water systems in the United States are copper pipe soldered with lead. It is no longer allowed but the law didn't require the old lead soldered systems to be replaced because the blood lead levels were acceptable and the money could be better spent elsewhere.

I read some of your stuff on Sage Grouse. I never saw you mention lead shot as a problem. Oil wells, loss of habitat, roads, etc... were what you were hammering on in what I could find.

The fact that game animals have some lead level in their bodies doesn't convince me that lead needs to be eliminated from hunting.

This is akin to the science that had us spend hundreds of billions of dollars to remove perfectly contained asbestos from schools and public building twenty years ago.

I repeat. What is it you recommend we change?

Best,

Mike

I think it best that we just ignore susan or ben or whoever it is. The point is that those who buy into the radical side of arguments like this and still think these people are reasonable should learn something from this.

All who love the outdoors would hardly do anything to harm it. We, as hunters and anglers are the original conservationalists. We started the movement. The emotional, disillusioned individuals who are trying to end hunting, shooting, and fishing are sincere and mean well. They also believe that the end justifies the means and aren't bothered by facts. Many are motivated by the fact that it's easy to seperate emotional people who love animals from their money.

There is hyperbole on both sides, but I will assure you that these groups, Defenders of Wildlife, The Sierra Club, The Audubon Society, The National Wildlife Federation, etc may have been real conservation groups at one time, but they have one agenda now, to stop fishng and hunting.

If you had any doubts before, Montana Ben or Grouse Guy should have answered you questions.

Best, Dick Jones