Originally Posted By: BrentD
Larry, if the discussion is about humans, than I can agree with you about step 2. But I don't believe that is what we were discussing was it?

It is really only step 3. And if you wish, yes, Condors matter here, and the rest of the raptors - so far as we know, CURRENTLY do not. But you have to admit, you know damn little about many of them.

If you go back and look at the data from the MNDNR you will see that buffalo hunter lead fragments were really not such a big deal. You will also do well go to back and look at what is know about the predators of the day - particularly raptors, not mammals. A little anatomy is useful there.


Brent, are you suggesting that we should NOT worry about lead in humans? Darn . . . wonder why they bothered to run that test up in ND. Seems to me, since we know that the ingestion of lead is toxic to humans, we should indeed worry about them. The animal rights types might say that a dog is a pig is a rat is a boy, but I think I'll put the boy on the top of the "worry" scale.

We do know, from raptor rehabilitators, that eagles are getting sick from ingesting lead. Would appear to be the kind of lead we were discussing most recently (fragments from bullets in unrecovered large game animals, or perhaps in what's left behind when the animal is field dressed. It's not at all unusual to see eagles on road-killed deer up here in WI. Don't know why they'd avoid animals that have been shot and not recovered.)

The MNDNR says a lot of things, including the following from their own Nontoxic Shot Advisory Committee: "The issues are extremely complex and conclusive data on wildlife population impacts is lacking. Furthermore, it is unlikely that conclusive data can ever be obtained due to the cost of this type of research." It was much easier to tell with waterfowl, because they've been closely monitored for a very long time, and are comparatively easy to observe. Also easy to tell with bald eagles (again, fairly closely monitored and observed), with numbers that were very low at the time lead was banned for waterfowl. But it's a bit hard to say how much of a role the lead ban played in the bald eagle recovery, because DDT was also banned not long prior to that.

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Last edited by L. Brown; 09/07/11 06:47 PM.