doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lead & Condor deaths

The shot surely is toxic to them but they don't encounter it the way waterfowl or eagles or condors do. Is this hard to understand? thus, lead in the uplands is not a problem at the level of affecting populations of upland birds.



I understand you now craig. You are here to fight for the sake of fighting, like Keith. Nowhere did I say anything remotely like that, but you choose to invent things I never said and then ascribe them to me. Quite low behavior. Among the lowest of the low actually.


craig by inventing things I did not say, you have demonstrated there really is no conversation here, only diatribe. I will leave you with keith to carry on as you must.

Let me address these statements too Larry. You found an article about an eagle that died with a 5.6 ppm blood lead level. So tell us the source of that lead. You are using this to support lead ammunition bans to protect eagles. What was it that caused those very toxic blood lead levels? Then you say that 30 died from exposure to lead in 2009. Was that at one raptor rehabilitation center, or several? What was the source of the lead? Then your Iowa rehabilitator reports that of 130 eagles that died at rehabilitation sites over 5 years, nearly 60% tested positive for lead poisoning. 130 over 5 years is an average of 26 deaths from all causes per year over multiple raptor rehabilitation sites. So we are talking about an average of 15.6 per year that died from some unknown source of lead at multiple raptor rehabilitation sites. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.

Again, what was the source of the lead Larry? Since virtually are all out there consuming lead bullet tainted gut piles, and wounded deer that are full of bullet fragments... according to you, why don't 100% of them have high blood lead levels? Didn't you tell us your Bald Eagle's version of "a chicken in every pot" was that practically every eagle you saw was feeding on a dead deer? Are you telling us that 40% of those poisoned eagles live and feed in areas where there is no hunting with lead shot or bullets? Since their diet actually is 70-90% fish, where are they feeding where both lead ammunition and lead fishing sinkers and jigs are not used? Where is this magical lead-free kingdom Larry?

Your argument isn't holding water Larry. Keep throwing bullshit until something sticks. But don't keep doing this and try to tell us that you are on our side.

edit: craigd, we must remember to only quote Brent's actual words. You cannot condense many paragraphs of obvious support for lead ammunition bans into one very accurate blanket statement or you will be accused of putting words in his mouth. Even though you are right, he will use that as his excuse to demonize you and me. And never forget this insanity... lead ammo isn't affecting populations of upland birds, so it is not a problem. Nor is it affecting Eagles at the population level, so we should just shut up like good little anti-lead soldiers, and accept lead ammunition bans. And I guess we should have quoted everything on Audobon's entire website even though only a couple sentences were needed to refute what Larry was trying to convince us of. These two birds are a trip.

Got a minute Larry, hope you might sit through my area 51 cow pies.

I'll start up top. 'My' quick search was as keith said, the search that you called for. So, I look, and find a complementary to you write up about some premier raptor rehabilitator. I thought the guy might walk on water, but it turns out he 'works on' about fifty raptors a year, this being doctor number one in the whole southeast. So, it makes me comment that maybe the raptor rehab folks aren't shuffling the big sensational numbers like Larry seems to indicate.

Pittman-Robertson funds do not pay for DNR's. They get rolled into the budget of the Dept of the Interior, that gets the vast majority of its funding from income tax payers including non hunters. The head of this dept is a presidential appointee. This is the person that decides on what does and doesn't get funded, studied and how it's presented.

What do you mean by whistle blowers. They are employees of the presidential appointee, and work for their goals. I think the conspiracy is on your side, just kidding, I think it's silly.

Back to your facts and figures, and how about that FWS. Where'd you get that 60% number? It's very easy to look up, FWS 'lead exposure in bald eagles in the upper midwest'. 58 dead birds sampled, a bit small eh, 60% of those showed trace, repeat trace, levels of lead. Of those, 38% showed high levels, only one, repeat only appeared to show lead poisoning signs.

They looked at potential, repeat potential sources of lead, which we know are many. The 'researchers' arbitrarily decided to focus on lead from rifle hunting bullets in gut pile. Not my words, it's in the report, with no reason or justification given.

25 gut piles were studied from an Illinois management area, most of the dead eagles were collected from Iowa and Wisconsin. They say these results conclude, deer offal is a very likely pathway to lead exposure. Do you think those dots are connected well enough?

Here's an interesting tidbit. Who did the collecting and studying of the 25 deer gut piles that the FWS says is the 'likely pathway'? Who describes the study on their website, who provided the x-ray of the 107 pieces of lead fragments in a gut pile? SOAR. Who uses the 'evidence', the FWS.

You know, that could be just fine, but you yourself said SOAR has an 'obvious bias'.

Call me anything you want, but I don't believe the FWS study is half way decent science. You and Brent can 'win' no big deal to me, but Brent seems to be getting a little warm under the collar. I hope an authoritative Brent will revisit this, and break down where I'm wrong. Yes, eagles can and do get lead poisoning and have died from it.

Want a quick lesson in junk agenda driven science and deceptive data kiddies?

First read this short article from the University of Minnesota Raptor Center:

http://www.raptor.umn.edu/our-research/lead-poisoning

It sounds pretty bad for lead ammunition until you really take a look at what they're saying. Their research, along with Minnesota DNR research was instrumental in providing evidence to support the 1991 Federal lead shot ban for waterfowl.

But when they did another study in 1997 to evaluate if the lead shot ban had reduced the number of lead poisoned eagles, it showed the prevalence of poisoned eagles didn�t change even with good hunter compliance. This lead them to conclude that eagles were being poisoned from another source of lead... deer gutpiles left in the field by hunters.

So they are telling us that the 1991 lead shot ban had no effect, even though they had maintained that eagles eating lead poisoned waterfowl or birds wounded with lead shot was the main source of lead poisoning in eagles.

It was all bullshit!

Now they are trying to convince you that the prevalence of lead poisoned eagles did not change by 1997 because of bullet fragments in deer... even though this new alleged source of lead, wounded deer and deer gut piles, is only available for a few weeks a year. But allegedly lead poisoned or lead containing ducks and geese were supposedly dying year round from both hunting and bottom feeding. Wouldn't you expect that the numbers of lead poisoned eagles, and their blood lead levels, should have dropped considerably?

They didn't!

Now check out this 2012 article from the National Biological Service:

http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/documents/95JCF.OLR01.pdf

Pay special attention to the map at the bottom left of the page that shows the numbers of eagles killed by lead poisoning by state. And note that the article does not even consider other sources of lead besides ammunition.

Iowa lost 16 eagles with an annual deer harvest of about 99,000 deer.

Illinois lost 9 eagles with an annual deer harvest of about 102,000 deer.

Wisconsin lost 43 eagles with a deer harvest of about 243,000.

Minnesota lost 23 eagles with an annual deer harvest of about 192,000 deer.

Maine lost 9 eagles with a deer harvest of just 21,000 deer.

Florida lost 14 eagles with an annual estimated deer harvest of about 136,000 deer.

South Dakota lost 22 eagles with a harvest of about 91,000 deer.

Ohio lost 4 eagles with a harvest of about 219,000 deer

Louisiana lost just 2 eagles with a deer harvest of about 117,000.

Pennsylvania lost only 1 eagle, that's 1 as in ONE, with a much higher annual deer harvest of about 330,000 deer.

Clearly, there is virtually no correlation between the numbers of hunter killed deer and the numbers of purported lead poisoned eagles. The correlation doesn't even hold up when you look at the total numbers of nesting pairs of eagles in these states. Pennsylvania had over twice as many nesting pairs as South Dakota in 2012... had a 3 1/2 times larger deer harvest... yet only a tiny fraction of lead poisoned eagles compared to S. Dakota. Virginia has the 5th highest number of nesting pairs of eagles in the continental U.S. and a 2012 deer harvest of over 231,000 deer, and only 2 eagle deaths by lead poisoning in 2012.

I imagine Larry will try to tell us that Pennsylvania and Virginia deer hunters do not leave wounded deer or gut-piles in the woods. Or maybe the UFO aliens are beaming them up before the eagles can eat them.

The University of Minnesota Raptor Center did not even consider other sources of lead... especially sources that are more bio-available, and thus more prone to actually cause toxic levels in the bloodstream. They jumped to a wild assed conclusion that helped pave the way for the 1991 Federal lead shot ban, and when that didn't help alleged numbers of poisoned eagles, they jumped to another wild assed conclusion about lead bullet fragments in deer carcasses and gut piles.

This is the crap that Larry and Brent are clinging to like a security blanket.

The Univ. of Minn. isotope analysis sounds impressive until you consider that isotope analysis cannot definitively prove that a sample of lead came from bullets or shot or some other source. It can only (sometimes) show what mine that lead came from. Lead comes from the natural decay of uranium, and uranium from differing sources decays into lead at different geological times. If the lead in the sample has been mixed with recovered or recycled lead, or lead from multiple sources, then isotope analysis is all but worthless. When you see lead isotope analysis being used as a smokescreen to try to sell the idea that lead ammunition should be banned, you should be very very suspicious. The same isotopes can be found in a bullet, a wheel weight, and a lead paint chip.

Keith, I'm a writer. People pay me for articles and books that I write. So I do know just a little about writing and editing. Craig was the FIRST to quote Audubon, in response to my statement that they were not anti-hunting. He left out the part that says they don't oppose hunting, and he left out the part that says when they do oppose hunting of specific species, they insist on "sound scientific information". That is clearly selective editing on his part. And then you repeated his highly selective quote. Caught with your hand in the proverbial cookie jar, I can see why you don't want to own up to it. But the quotes I added were the ones Craig "conveniently" left out. When an organization has a position on hunting and you're trying to prove they're pro, anti, or neutral, you must include the ENTIRE quote--unless, like you and Craig, you're agenda-driven. And are into selective editing. Guilty as charged. Next case.

Where eagles are concerned, Keith, you're ignoring the problem. Ignoring a problem won't make it go away. It's likely to come back and bite you in the ass when you're not looking. So "only" 140 eagles were lost in a total of 10 states, in one year. No big deal, you say. Well no . . . I pointed out from the get-go that eagles are not endangered, nor even threatened, and that in fact their numbers are increasing. But you're in denial about the fact that eagles are not crows, ravens, or vultures. If a few of those die from lead poisoning, no big deal. But eagles--although you're doing your best to ignore it--ARE a big deal. Because they're eagles, very visible, and our national symbol. And also because, not so long ago, they were in real trouble. It may not be a big deal to you, but it is to the public. That's why eagles dying from lead poisoning--even if their population is not decreasing as a result--get a whole lot of coverage in the media. Which means that we, as hunters, have to deal with the problem. Stick your head in the sand if you want (try not to bump heads with Craig!), but it's an issue that isn't going to go away all by itself.

And sorry, but the analogy to climate change isn't valid. There are scientists out there who don't believe that humans are causing climate change. They've written articles, etc. Show me the articles written by biologists in the wildlife field who are debunking lead poisoning. Show me the evidence that there's been a vast conspiracy within the wildlife management community to convince us that lead shot was killing waterfowl when it wasn't, and that lead bullet fragments are now killing eagles when they're not. Show me a link to an article by a whistleblower who's a wildlife researcher. Otherwise, I'm not buying what you're selling on waterfowl. And when it comes to eagles, you're clearly in denial of a problem hunters have to deal with. Even if you don't happen to think it's a big deal. I'm thinking that denial must be the major river wherever you live.

Craig, same response to you: You just don't get it that eagle numbers don't need to be huge for it to be a big deal. 140 in 10 states in one season . . . that is going to sound huge to the general public, even if it doesn't to you. Ignoring the problem by saying the numbers aren't big won't make the problem go away.

P-R dollars are only a small part of a DNR's budget. Most rely on the sale of hunting licenses. P-R money is only icing on the cake . . . although the icing is thicker lately thanks to increased sales of firearms and ammunition. And DNR employees work for the respective states, not for DC. DNR's don't need P-R $ to look at a few sick or dead eagles, take some X-rays, draw blood samples, etc.

Still waiting for that elusive whistleblower link from you or Keith. Surely someone in the business will have said "it's all junk science and it's all about anti-hunting"--because, after all, it's hunter $ that fund the very agencies and biologists who supported the conclusion that lead shot was a problem for waterfowl. Odd, don't you think, that no one inside the wildlife management community would point out that they're shooting themselves in the foot with hunters--since hunters pay their salaries?

Still grasping at straws Larry? You couldn't refute any of that information I posted last night about the extremely questionable anti-lead ammo work done by the Univ. of Minnesota Raptor Rehabilitation Center, and the total lack of correlation between the numbers of lead poisoned eagles and numbers of deer shot by hunters in various states. So instead, you feel the pathetic need to go back to accusing craigd of selective editing.

You may be a writer, but you ought to try being a reader too.

Once again, craigd was merely responding to your denials that Audobon had engaged in anti-hunting efforts. All he needed was a short section of their own statement on that to prove you wrong. Even if he had posted the complete statement, including the last part which you also left out, it wouldn't have changed a thing. You would have still been wrong. It was you who intentionally left out the part which proved you were wrong about their anti-hunting attitudes. You were still trying to deny something that was right there on their own webpage. The part craigd left out would not have made him or me wrong. But when you can't win an argument with facts or ideas, why not resort to lame attempts to discredit the opposition, right Larry?

Only 140 eagles? WTF Larry... yesterday it was 130! Did 10 more die overnight? My point is, I don't care if it is 10 or 1000 eagles that are dying from lead poisoning if hunters and their lead ammunition are being incorrectly and dishonestly blamed for it. Did you see how many eagles are killed by power lines Larry? Are you supporting eliminating the electric grid the same way you are supporting lead bullet bans by clinging to your silly notions about eagles feasting on bullet fragment laced deer and gut-piles? We all know the bald eagle is a very visible national symbol. You don't need to keep repeating that. That doesn't excuse placing the blame for their poisoning in the wrong place.

That is what you are doing, and in the process, you are helping anti-lead ammo efforts. No Larry, I am not suggesting that we should ban power lines. Don't get all excited and accuse me of that now.

I found a ton of extremely questionable and contradictory data last night when I took the time to post those two links that should show all but the most agenda driven fool that there is no link to lead bullets as being a major source of lead poisoning in eagles. Did you even read that Larry? Did you catch the very disturbing statement from the Univ. of Minn. Raptor Center that said that their 1997 follow-up study to determine if the 1991 Federal lead shot ban had reduced the number of lead poisoned eagles, it showed the prevalence of poisoned eagles didn�t change, even with good hunter compliance.? This lead them to conclude that eagles were being poisoned from another source of lead... deer gut piles left in the field by hunters.

You refuse to even acknowledge bombshell evidence that the 1991 Federal lead shot ban didn't reduce lead poisoning in eagles. The so-called science the Univ. of Minn. Raptor Center did to support that Federal ban was absolute garbage!

Did you notice that those two links I provided were from sources that are propping up the idea of lead from ammunition as the source of poisoning in eagles Larry? I did not cherry-pick my Google search to find something that agreed with me. I intentionally avoided the many sources that agree with me. I found things that agreed with you and Brent, and then easily refuted it.

You want more? I'll give you more. But you obviously wish to simply sidestep what I gave you last night, and continue on your single-minded path to prove you are not wrong.

You simply act like you never even read it and go back to your same silly arguments and demands that I should find a whistle-blower. Climate-gate had nothing to do with this? It was an illustration that deceptive science is common. It was an illustration that Government funded agencies do sneaky things in order to advance their agenda. The Lois Lerner scandal in the IRS is another one. You were in the CIA Larry. There would be no need for the CIA if Governments did not do sneaky things. Hillary Clinton is being investigated by 150 FBI agents for destroying evidence and keeping classified information on a private e-mail server. There are no links to whistle-blowers on those things. Climate-gate would have never been known about if computer hackers didn't accidentally find out about the fudged data.

But this has become all about your inability to admit that you are wrong about so many of your assumptions about lead ammunition and lead poisoning in birds. I found a lot more highly questionable and contradictory data in about an hour of searching last night Larry. It's very easy if you just open your eyes and let go of your preconceived notions. I don't think you can do that, but I will post some more for others to digest later.

Keith, you just keep at it, don't you? First of all, to go back to the very beginning and your contention that cattle in CA are a more likely source of lead in condors than bullet fragments: If you read the article you posted, you'll find that the article itself mentions lead shot as one of the sources of lead in cattle. I guess ingested via grazing activities? . . . but that's their statement, not mine. Second, cattle are ruminants. They chew their food. Whatever they eat gets chewed. Therefore, it seems to me that any lead that entered their mouths whole would get chewed up before it got swallowed (like paint chips, etc) and would not resemble bullet fragments if a dead condor were x-rayed for lead. Bullet fragments from deer and other animals, on the other hand, don't enter a deer through its mouth. And eagles don't chew their food. So there are going to be fragments in the critter scavenged, and will remain fragments in the digestive tract of the scavenger.

Correlation between the number of lead-poisoned eagles and the number of deer shot? It's your assumption that the "correlation" does not make sense. Eagles aren't the only scavengers out there, and their density is not so great that they're going to be eating all the wounded and unrecovered deer. They may only eat part of a dead deer (cleaning up after some other scavenger); they may miss the parts that contain bullet fragments; or the eagle in question may ingest fragments, go off and die, and not be recovered to be examined. I wouldn't hang my hat on that one if I were you. Way too many possibilities.

My initial statement concerning Audubon was not a direct quote from them. What I said was: "Audubon is not squarely in the anti-hunting camp." And their own statement clearly establishes that they are not. Craig left out all the pro-hunting parts . . . quite conveniently. That's what agenda-driven people do. It's an attempt to avoid being fair and balanced.

The prevalence of lead poisoned eagles . . . well Keith, there were 3400 breeding pairs of bald eagles in 1991. By 1997, that figure had increased to 5300 pairs. So if as many were dying from lead poisoning in 1997 as in 1991, that would mean a significant REDUCTION in the PERCENTAGE of eagles dying from lead poisoning. Plus, as you have pointed out yourself, just because we stopped shooting lead shot didn't mean it disappeared instantly. Ducks and geese could still ingest it, and eagles could still eat ducks and geese and end up with lead shot as a result. But if the number remained relatively constant, that actually shows a REDUCTION in lead poisoning, which could well be a result of the lead shot ban. But since the scavenged animals shot with lead bullets were there in 1991, lead bullets weren't banned, and scavenged animals shot with lead bullets were still there in 1997, that could obviously be a source of lead poisoning--at roughly the same rate--both before and after the lead shot ban.

As for the CIA, it has nothing to do with "sneaky activities" in the US government. That would be the business of the Dept of Justice and the FBI . . . and the FBI guards its turf very jealously. And very little extra-legal is likely to happen in CIA, for the simple reason that--as I pointed out where conspiracies are concerned--some whistleblower is going to toot his whistle about what's going on. Mainly because it's not good for one's career, and can quite easily involve jail time, if you play fast and loose with the law and the regulations that govern the intelligence community.

As for your contention that hackers debunked climate change . . . Nope. Contrarian scientists debunked climate change. All hackers did was reveal some inconsistencies in data. But the hackers aren't the big deal. The scientists who disagreed from the start are the big deal. So where are the wildlife scientists who are debunking the great lead poisoning scam you're suggesting? Looks like from all your googling, you haven't found their equivalent. And your "refutations" of evidence are based on assumptions you make, through which I can punch fairly large holes without any significant effort. Show me an EXPERT who says all the lead poisoning stuff is bogus. Sorry, but you're not an expert.

Just a few more points from the crowd that thinks the whole "eating lead shot killed waterfowl" thing was a scam, that eagles are not a big deal, and that proof that bullet fragments are causing lead poisoning in eagles is lacking:

1. The waterfowl debate is over and done with. We were shown lead pellets in ducks and geese that got sick and died. If they're getting sick and dying now at anything approaching the same rate, why isn't it being reported? Why are we not seeing them? The evidence would seem to show that by not depositing 25 years worth of lead shot around wetlands, we've significantly reduced the numbers of ducks and geese dying from lead poisoning. And easy enough to tell if left-over lead shot is involved if a duck or goose does die from lead poisoning. While a lead fragment may not conclusively come from a bullet, it's hard to come up with anything else out there that looks like a lead shotgun pellet. (And that fact actually HELPS us when the anti-lead folks suggest we shouldn't be shooting lead shot at upland birds. Why not? Show us the upland birds dying from ingested lead shot. The Wisconsin DNR tested woodcock with high lead levels . . . but they did not find lead shot in any of the birds, and admitted the lead could have been acquired from the soil in which woodcock feed, or from the worms they eat.)

2. If an eagle is sick or dies and has both high lead levels and lead fragments: Yes, it's possible the fragments are not the source (or are not the SOLE source) of lead in the bird's system; and yes, it's possible that the fragments didn't come from bullets. But those fragments don't come from lead in the air (which has been significantly reduced thanks to unleaded gas) nor from the water they might drink, nor from the fish they eat. Not nearly as likely as in the past that they'd come from paint chips, since lead-based paint is far less common than it used to be. All in all, it's harder to prove that an eagle with lead poisoning and fragments didn't get those fragments from scavenging something that was shot. And unfortunately for those who hunt with rifles, while we can easily say shotgun pellets aren't the problem because we don't see any, the guys who use bullets are going to be pushed into a position of proving those fragments come from something OTHER THAN BULLETS. Otherwise, bullets will be the assumed source. And the only real way to prove they're not is to switch to non-lead bullets . . . and see if the problem goes away. But good luck switching back to lead.

3. Lead is toxic. Toxic = bad. Why not get rid of as much of it as possible? And we can shoot steel shot, and there are nontoxic substitutes for lead bullets. So we are ALL going to have to deal with the challenge of why shouldn't we switch, rather than defending the status quo by saying why should we. That, unfortunately, is where we're at. And in states where we don't have strong hunter numbers (like California), we might very well find ourselves in the same boat they're in. All we can do is make as much noise as possible, and insist on "good science". But we're shooting ourselves in the foot if we keep trying to fight the battles we've already lost (like waterfowl).

With that . . .I'm outta this discussion. Unless someone can come up with an EXPERT source, from among all the wildlife biologists out there, who tells us that the lead ban on waterfowl was just one big scam. That I'd like to see.

Larry, what we need to keep in mind is that you're a writer, and I'm not. I'll keep a look out for complete expert quotes, so that I know what I'm reading is fair and balanced.