doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lead Shot Ban in Montana

He doesn't want to inform you or care if you believe anything he posts, he just want to feel like a self-important controversial bigshot.
The more attention he gets, the more it feeds his ego and proves to himself what a bigshot he really is.

Ignor him (as with all internet trolls) and he will go away. Ignor his endless lists of so called data; he hasn't read it, why should you?

Put your time, research and thought into testimony for Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks. Even if you simply say that you are opposed to manditory lead shot for upland bird hunting, as a state resident or non-resident it will surely help the cause. That's what I'm going to do.
Thanks,
Steve

Thank you Daryl.

Steven I find it interesting how tenuous and nebulous the connection between the data and the conclusions are.

Here is another abstract from Grouse Guy's list:
Scheuhammer, A.M., Bond, D.E., Burgess, N.M., Rodrigue, J., 2003.
Lead and stable isotope ratios in soil, earthworms and bones

A study to discriminate among different possible sources of elevated Pb exposure for American woodcock (Scolopax minor) in eastern Canada is described. Undamaged wing bones excised from young-of-the-year woodcock collected from several locations in southern Ontario, southern Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, Canada, along with soil and earthworm (Aporrectodea tuberculata and Lumbricus rubellus) samples from the same sites, were analyzed for total Pb, and stable Pb isotopes. Ignoring six soil samples with high (> 60 microg/g) Pb concentration from the vicinity of Montreal (QC, Canada), the mean soil-Pb concentration for all sites combined was 19 microg/g (dry wt; n = 64), with a mean 206Pb:207Pb ratio of 1.19, values typical for uncontaminated rural soils in eastern North America. In earthworms, Pb concentrations ranged from 2.4 to 865 (microg/g [dry wt], mean = 24 microg/g). Concentrations of Pb in worms and soils were positively correlated (r = 0.71; p < 0.01), and 206Pb:207Pb ratios for worms and soils were also positively correlated (r = 0.54; p < 0.05). However, most young-of-the-year woodcock with high bone-Pb accumulation (> 20 microg/g) had 206Pb:207Pb ratios substantially different from worms and soils sampled from the same areas, even though woodcock feed extensively on soil invertebrates, especially earthworms. The range of 206Pb:207Pb ratios in wing bones of woodcock with elevated Pb exposure was not consistent with exposure to environmental Pb from past gasoline combustion nor Precambrian mining wastes but was consistent with ingestion of spent Pb shotgun pellets.


What they did for this study:

They measured lead concentrations in earthworms and soil in different areas.

They measured lead concentrations in Woodcock chicks.

They found some chicks with a lead concentration relative higher than the soil and eathworms in that area would indicate they ought to be compared to other chicks in other areas.

They concluded that the difference had to be from lead shot ingestion.

I have sure seen a variety of critters in the craws of the birds I have taken over the years. Don't usually see grasshoppers in the January birds' craws but I frequently find them in November. What if I tested my birds' lead concentrations in June rather than January. Would there be a difference. What about plants? Would one area have identical plants and if they did would the seeds mature at the same time? If they did were the seeds mature at the time of the data collection?

Psssh

Best,

Mike

Ben, you keep tapdancing around my question, which is a fairly simple one: WHAT KILLED THOSE CHUKAR THAT WERE FOUND TO HAVE LEAD IN THEIR GIZZARDS? If you tell me that they were simply found dead and that the lead in their gizzards was determined to be the cause of their deaths, you're going to both surprise and impress me. However, I'm guessing that--like the Iowa pheasants that were shot and found to carry bird flu antibodies (which means the bird flu didn't kill them, and examination indicated they were in a healthy, unweakened state), those chukar were probably shot also. Did examination show them to be emaciated or otherwise weakened due to the presence of lead in their gizzards? Or were they healthy? In order to prove that ingestion of lead pellets at a very low level kills birds, you have to come up with birds that have actually DIED from something like a single lead pellet in their gizzards--not from some other cause.

As for any reports about eagles CURRENTLY endangered due to lead shot, the following appeared in the Des Moines Register about a year ago, with the Iowa eagle statistics provided by the DNR:

"In the 1960's, largely because of the pesticide DDT, there were only about 500 pairs of bald eagles in the entire United States. Iowa's eagle population began rebounding in 1977 with a single nesting pair. By 1984, there were still only two."

"Currently, the state has 167 documented pairs of nesting eagles (estimates are closer to 200), said Pat Schlarbaum, a wildlife technician with the DNR."

"The most recent midwinter survey, he said, counted about 3,000 bald eagles in Iowa, including a cluster in downtown Des Moines."

I'd add that the same article includes comments from wildlife rehabilitators that they're seeing "a growing number of eagles brought to them with lead poisoning they think is being caused by eagles consuming the carcasses of dead deer that have crossed the paths of hunters."

One commented that "We have X-rays of lead shrapnel in eagle bellies and we've X-rayed deer carcasses that have the same sort of fragments."

Leaving the "shrapnel" comment aside . . . well, yeah. When you have a hundred times more nesting pairs of eagles than we had 25 years ago, and when we have more eagles in Iowa in the winter than there were in the ENTIRE COUNTRY in the 1960's (and winter happens to coincide with gun deer season in Iowa), no surprise that more will show up sick or injured, for whatever reason. But how worried about eagles should we be, when their population has increased to that extent? It's not like the ones dying from lead poisoning are threatening the eagle population--which seems to continue to grow. Looks like the elimination of DDT, and perhaps going nontox for waterfowl, has solved whatever problem the eagles were facing in the not too distant past. The eagle recovery, in spite of lead bullets and lead shot in the uplands, is nothing short of miraculous.

The way wildlife science works is this: You only worry about individual animals if the population is threatened or endangered. If it's not, and especially if the population is in fact increasing, then you no longer focus on individual fatalities. What's key is the welfare of the SPECIES, not of the INDIVIDUAL. Otherwise, we're treating all eagles like pets. And if we expand that to species we hunt . . . well then, I guess we shouldn't hunt them, because we kill some of them and take them home with us, and others end up running or flying off crippled and dying later. But as long as hunting is not harming the overall status of the species as a whole, we don't worry about it. Why treat eagles (or any other species) differently? That would run counter to the very core of wildlife science, which focuses on the welfare of the species rather than of the individual animal.

WHOA!!! Now you fellers can argue long as you want to about the effects of lead in this or that bird. But don't start talking about how it's killing eagles. Three years ago AmarilloMike and I shot dove in Argentina near Cordoba. Every time the shooting began large numbers of eagles would show up to feed on the shot riven dove. Every one of the eagles would gulp down half dozen or so at each shoot. Golly, they were pros--stripping the feathers and tearing away at the goodies in just a handful of seconds. Then they'd hop back onto a nearby branch and critique the shooting. In a few minutes they'd select a new dinner and have at it. Folks, these birds were eating a large amount of lead daily, 365 days a year and were as healthy as any bird I've ever seen. And most of them were adults. One adult had a favorite limb only a couple yards from me and insult me with derisive side glances every time I'd miss or if the dove fell in brush too thick for him to retrieve. Does he look like he's suffering from lead poisioning? Common....I'm sick to death with all this fake, cooked up "science". Every day I'm confronted with alarms about how such and such is killing us or destroying our environment only to find out later that new research showed the scare to be incorrect. Thanks to the internet every nut on earth has his soapbox and is shouting at the top of his lungs.

Joe, I've seen the Eagles in South America feeding on the doves I've shot too. They seemed perfectly healthy to me, but I went home and they stayed and presumably ate somebody else's doves the next week and on and on till they died, maybe of lead poisoning.

I'm as confused as anybody by 'cooked up science' whether about lead poisoning or global warming. But I do believe that it is established 'good science' that lead poisoning was killing waterfowl, so I have put up with steel shot and expensive substitutes in my old doubles. I don't find it any great leap of faith to believe that other bird including Eagles, upland game birds and songbirds are similarly affected by lead poisoning.

In my mind it remains to be shown whether low level lead deposits from upland hunting are actually being ingested by wildlife in sufficient amounts to be of harm, but if so, I would feel the same way about having to use lead substitutes in upland hunting as I do about waterfowl; I'd regret having to give it up,but I would do it for the good of the environment...Geo

If Grouse Guy is either a hunter or a shooter, I'm an Obama supporter. This jerk keeps creeping out of the woodwork to advance his agenda. He always gets beaten down here and stays quiet for a while, but he's like one of those battered women who keep going back to their abusive spouse. You can tell by his writing and responses that he clearly lacks the intelligence to digest and understand a journal article or scientific research paper. He just gives us a bibliography from a Google search. Mostly though, he just plain lacks any common sense. Several posts here and in the recent past lament lower numbers of pheasants, grouse, and other game birds in recent years. Here in my own state of Pennsylvania, pheasants are practically an endangered species, and grouse are quite scarce when they should be on their cyclical upswing. Yet lead contamination in the environment now is a small fraction of what it was forty years ago when game bird populations were much higher. The greatest source of lead pollution at any time in history was during this time from gasoline with tetraethyl lead. Burning it produced lead fumes and dust at an almost atomic microscopic level that was deposited on the land, water, and in the air. The amount was many many time higher than the amount of lead used by shooters. Of course, there was also much more lead pollution from industrial sources and paint. Our (and wildlife's) exposure was much greater then than what we have now with the small amount of much larger pieces of lead that hunters and shooters leave behind. So perhaps one could conclude that it is a lack of lead pollution that has given many of us lower game bird populations. If lead is a problem now, one would think that most life on earth would have become extinct then. Habitat loss is not nearly the problem in Penna. that it is in other states. This theory is certainly more sensible than a study that concludes that it is better to cripple and lose ten times as many birds with costly steel or non-tox, than would be lost due to a small number who might ingest some lead pellets. But none of this is about sensibility or factual science. It is a small, but pervasive cadre of liars who use selective "science" to advance their real agenda. The lead ban crowd is really anti-gun and anti-hunting. They are not unlike the global warming crowd who expect us to destroy our standard of living in order to redistribute wealth. Grouse Guy is not one of us. Don't fall for his crap. If he's willing to do some experiments on ingesting lead himself, I'll supply the shot.

"Don't fall for his crap. If he's willing to do some experiments on ingesting lead himself, I'll supply the shot."

Were you thinking low pressure, low velocity, light loads or heavy high pressure, max. velocity loads for a full test?

Global warming is one of the best scams of all time. They will be studying that one decades with a never ending series of conclusions based on very little facts, even less understanding of those facts and a every increasing, shrill call for action.

Warmest time in 500 years. Bull----. How many SUV's, how many people were alive 500 years ago. Total world population was maybe 150-200 million total. How could so few people, without major carbon use, cause the same effect then that six billion "carbon users" today cause. Never happened. It is arragont of man to think that his actions alone are responsible for the state of his world. Ocean temperature increases because of increased under water volcanoes, sun spot increases and an entire assortment of natural events are more likely to blame for any changes. Always remember these same "experts" were screaming, just 30 years ago, that we were about to enter another cold period that may become another ice age. Global cooling became global warming and the funding goes on. Scam and soft science at its worst.

Hello Larry B:

To answer your question about the research paper on wild chukar ingestion of shot in Oregon, I'd recommend you contact at least one of the authors of the paper, Kerry Reese at Univ. of Idaho at Moscow. He is a smart guy, an avid upland bird hunter, a respected biologist, and I'm sure would be pleased to answer your questions.

Here is another related study:

Lead pellet ingestion and liver-lead concentrations in upland game birds from southern Ontario, Canada.
Kreager N, Wainman BC, Jayasinghe RK, Tsuji LJ.

Department of Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

One-hundred twenty-three gizzards from upland game birds (chukar, Alectoris chukar; and common pheasant, Phasianus colchicus) harvested by hunters in southern Ontario, Canada, were examined for lead pellet ingestion by manual examination of gizzard contents and by radiography. Lead pellets were found to be ingested by chukars (6/76; 8%) and the common pheasant (16/47; 34%). Further, 13% (17/129) of the bird (wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo; Hungarian partridge, Perdix perdix; chukar; and common pheasant) livers analyzed had elevated lead concentrations (> or =6 microg/g wet weight [ww]). Liver-lead concentrations above Health Canada's guideline for human consumption of fish protein (<0.5 microg/g ww) were found in 40% (51/129) of livers analyzed. Data indicate that the ingestion of lead pellets in upland game birds and the potential consumption of lead-contaminated meat by humans are concerns related to the continued use of lead shotshell for hunting.

Could it be? The claim of lead killing upland birds seemed ludicrous to me. I reported on science for years. Birds picking up lead in wide-open spaces of prairies and deserts, c'mon. Last week my nephew asked about lead in salt-water harbours where we do a lot of gunning. I replied that generations of shooting from the blind on Rum Point alone must have left a ton of lead. Could the same apply where dry-land gunning is concentrated, where habitat favours pheasant, grouse, quail etc?

Ok, I chased down the study Grouse Guy names in his last post:

Lead pellet ingestion and liver-lead concentrations in upland game birds from southern Ontario, Canada.
Kreager N, Wainman BC, Jayasinghe RK, Tsuji LJ.

Department of Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

1. The study was done on pen raised birds on a game farm. It has been a game farm since the 1930s. The birds were released the day of the hunt.

2. The island also had shotgun target shooting on it. The birds were not fenced off from the range.

3. No analysis was done on the pen raised birds before they were released. That is there was no control group. The birds could have arrived on the island with high levels of lead in their liver.

4. The analysis focused on bird livers because some Europeans and some indigenoos people consider them a delicacy.

5. The study author's target was public shooting ranges.

6. The authors acknowled that the lead levels in the livers could be from shot fragmentation but go on to discount it.

The following paragraphs I copied out of the study. I thought they were intresting. I added the italic and underline.

This is the abstract:
One-hundred twenty-three gizzards from upland game birds (chukar, Alectoris chukar; and common pheasant, Phasianus colchicus) harvested by hunters in southern Ontario, Canada, were examined for lead pellet ingestion by manual examination of gizzard contents and by radiography. Lead pellets were found to be ingested by chukars (6/76; 8%) and the common pheasant (16/47; 34%). Further, 13% (17/129) of the bird (wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo; Hungarian partridge, Perdix perdix; chukar; and common pheasant) livers analyzed had elevated lead concentrations (≥6 μg/g wet weight [ww]). Liver-lead concentrations above Health Canada’s guideline for human consumption of fish protein (<0.5 μg/g ww) were found in 40% (51/129) of livers analyzed. Data indicate that the ingestion of lead pellets in upland game birds and the potential consumption of lead-contaminated meat by humans are concerns related to the continued use of lead shotshell for hunting.

I copied the following out of the full report.

In this study, we examine lead pellet ingestion rates for upland game birds (chukar, Alectoris chukar; and common pheasant, Phasianus colchicus) harvested from a heavily hunted area in southern Ontario, Canada, to evaluate bird health. In addition, the potential for lead contamination of upland game bird livers via the embedding of lead pellets/fragments will also be examined through radiography and electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (EAAS), as offal is consumed by Native Canadians (Tsuji and Nieboer 1999) and some Europeans (Guitart et al. 2002) as a delicacy.

Gizzards (n = 123) from chukars and common pheasants, and livers (n = 129) from four species of upland game birds (wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo; Hungarian partridge, Perdix perdix; chukar; and common pheasant), were collected whole from upland habitat located on a private island (approximately 1950 acres) in southern Ontario, Canada. The island was characterized by mixed woodland with monospecific stands of grass (Gramineae), while some fields also contained wheat (Agropyron spp.), burdock (Arctium spp.), and thistle (Sonchus spp.) (Holdner et al. 2004). Different areas of the island experienced different hunting pressure: shooting stations were used primarily for clay target shooting; fields were generally heavily hunted over, with some fields being tilled annually, while others were never tilled; and the fly pen enclosure area housed the upland game birds prior to release (Holdner et al. 2004). Farm-raised birds were released the day of the hunt, though whatever birds that survived earlier hunts were still in the fields. There is not a large overwinter population of birds. The study area has been heavily hunted with respect to indigenous wild turkeys and imported farm-raised chukars, Hungarian partridges and common pheasants for released bird hunting, since the 1930s.
Sample collection was conducted in the fall of 2000. Gizzard and liver samples were not always matched; that is, gizzard and liver were not always collected for each bird. Only lead shotshell has been used to hunt the upland game birds at this location and hunters are restricted to the use of lead shotshells provided by the hunting club. Lead pellet density ranged from 14 pellets per 0.25 m2 in the hunting fields to 2051 pellets per 0.25 m2 in clay target shooting areas (Holdner et al. 2004). Bird movement was not restricted by any physical barriers between target shooting and hunting areas; however, birds were collected from the hunting fields. Although the present study site was atypical in that it was a private shooting range/hunting club, there are at least 211 active public shooting ranges in Ontario where spent lead pellets are contributing to high lead loadings (tons/year) in the environment (Darling and Thomas 2003). Thus, the pellet densities found on the island (Holdner et al. 2004) are not atypical for outdoor shooting ranges in Ontario. The majority of these active shooting ranges are located in southern and central Ontario where luvisolic soils predominates (Darling and Thomas 2003). Since there is no provincial requirement with respect to site remediation of lead pellets at active public shooting ranges, as well as defunct public shooting ranges and private shooting ranges (Darling and Thomas 2003), lead pellets remain in the environment and a potential threat to upland game birds in Ontario.

However, liver-lead levels must be interpreted with caution because even though there is not radiographic evidence of lead fragment contamination, lead fragments could be so fine (Frank 1986) as not to show up on a radiograph or appear as an artifact.

The nontoxic shot regulations do not apply to upland game species such as the American woodcock, which has shown no decrease in mean bone-lead concentrations since the regulations came into effect (Stevenson et al. 2005). Moreover, Scheuhammer et al. (2003) have shown, using stable lead isotopes ratios, that the elevated lead levels in American woodcock were consistent with lead shot ingestion.

That was the last of what I copied from the report.

If the woodcock lead levels have not gone down with the waterfowl lead ban why does it mean that lead shot from upland hunters have replaced the source? I got the isotope argument but the lead is not gone from the waterways and woodcock have different habits than snow geese.

What about studies showing higher concentrations of lead in urban pigeons than in rural pigeons.

Did they measure the blood levels of any of the people eating the bird livers for high concentrations of lead.

Grouse Guy and his ilk pay lip service to public ranges and the acceptability of lead shot there but their ultimate goal is the elimiantion of lead shot period.

Like others here I wonder if he has read these reports or gets his stuff from a National Wildlife Federation "Talking Points" email every morning.

What about the loss of birds from the loss of habitat? Monsanto Roundup farming has drastically reduced the quantity and quality of cover and wild bird feed on the farms around here. Where is lead poisoning in the leading causes of human death in the US?

Again, what about urban pigeons having a higher lead content than rural pigeons? Where are they ingesting lead shot.

What about the study showing urban humans having a higher lead content in their blood the rural humans?

This isn't the dawn of man. There are six billion of us and we have changed the enviroment.

Best,

Mike

Edit: I keep editing out grammer and spelling mistakes.