craigd, Larry has already answered your question. Larry's logic and feelings are obviously superior to everyone because he is a Professional Outdoors Writer and ex-CIA employee. He is no more an expert on this subject than anyone here, but if you dare disagree with him, he will make a total ass of himself by resorting to ridiculous attempts to discredit you.
I have many times acknowledged that some waterfowl undoubtedly die from exposure to lead shot, whether by eating it or getting shot with it. I also acknowledged that there may not be any researchers who have put out papers or studies that show there was no massive lead poisoning of waterfowl. And there may be no whistle-blowers about a vast conspiracy. That is the negative I referred to when I said Larry was asking me to prove a negative.
You don't need a vast conspiracy though, when so many people are so willing to swallow anything. Just look at how many millions believe and support Hillary Clinton even though she destroyed evidence of over 30,000 State Dept. e-mails stored on a private server... during a Congressional Investigation... and tells us that the smartest woman who ever lived did not know that some of it was classified secrets and ultra-classified secret information.
By the same token, there was a very long time period when there were no experts who said, or even knew, that trans-fats were actually more dangerous for your heart than butter. My whistle-blower could still show up. Wouldn't matter though. Larry would just say he didn't have good enough credentials.
But that's the best Larry can do here... besides resorting to silly semantics games... because he was unable to use logic and reasoning to explain away any of the glaring inconsistencies, errors, and absolute bullshit in those articles or studies I referred to.
Lacking anything of substance, he felt the childish need to revisit the "selective editing" thing. Once again Larry... craigd's use of a part of Audobon's position statement on hunting did not in any way change, enhance, or diminish a thing. However, your use of only a part of that statement was intended to support your earlier erroneous contention about Audobon, which craid's partial quote proved was 100% wrong. If craigd had posted the full statement, it wouldn't have changed the point he was making one tiny bit. On the other hand, if you hadn't intentionally left out the juicy part, you would have proven yourself wrong. I was generous and kind to call what you did "selective editing". Actually, now it would be more accurate to call it "deceptive editing".
I have no idea why you would want to revisit that one. Talk about wasting time on battles you have already lost! But when you're grasping at straws, I guess you have to try anything to discredit your opponent.
Re: Lead poisoning in waterfowl vs. upland birds. Susceptibility (or vulnerability or sensitivity)and exposure to a toxin are two very different things. To tell you the truth, I don't know if three # 6 lead shot in the crop of a 2 lb. duck will create a higher blood lead level than three #6 lead shot in the crop of a 2 lb. pheasant, assuming equal time of retention. I would assume they would be very similar. Not all waterfowl frequent areas of high shot concentrations, and conversely, not all upland game birds spend their lives in areas of very low shot concentrations. Very high concentrations that sink into deep water will be unavailable to do any amount of poisoning. You are making a very simplistic and incorrect assumption about the feeding habits of waterfowl Larry. I'm not into waterfowl hunting and haven't done any since college because I don't care much for duck or goose meat. But even I know that some may probe the bottom where there may be shot, and some are dabblers that use their bills to strain out aquatic vegetation, algae, and aquatic invertebrates... and seldom venture to the bottom where the shot may be, while they are feeding in water. Diving duck species typically aren't rooting around in the silt, but rather feeding upon aquatic plants, insects, and small fish.
I'm no accredited expert, but intelligent enough to understand that the presence of lead shot in a crop, gizzard, or stomach absolutely does not prove that is a MAJOR contributing factor to any lead in a bird's system. It is entirely circumstantial until other more bio-available sources can be ruled out. This is in stark contrast to what you, and what seems to be the majority of these so-called experts, believe. Many immediately conclude that any small number of lead shot or bullet fragments in a digestive tract has to be the sole cause of high blood lead levels or fatal poisoning. Many also reach that same conclusion in the complete absence of shot or bullet fragments.
Larry's statement saying "Lead is Toxic. Toxic = Bad" was not put up as an example of public perception. He is not playing to low information voters or uneducated members of the public here, so his explanation for that statement rings hollow. I purposely reproduced the entire statement, so that Larry couldn't accuse me of selective editing. There was no disclaimer to inform the reader that was not Larry's belief. In fact, the parts that followed, along with 90% of what he has said prior to that in this thread, would support the conclusion that Larry is generally anti-lead except for upland game, as craigd has also noticed. Insofar as I can tell, he has already thrown deer hunters under the bus, and feels that they are just lucky to have the numbers to stave off lead bullet bans.
Larry closes his most recent attempt to discredit me, and my lack of credentials, by once again showing us he doesn't know the difference between susceptibility and exposure to a toxin. Being dumb once wasn't enough for him. Larry is no more an expert on this subject than me. He probably knows far less about it than I do, and apparently lacks the ability to critically analyze even the most obvious absolute crap that passes for science. Lacking his precious "expert" credentials, he feels I don't have the right to question anything. If Larry believed in Santa Claus, and I disagreed with him, Larry would be arguing that I am not worth having an intelligent discussion with because I am not an accredited expert on life at the North Pole.
OK Larry, show us proof that 2-3,000,000 ducks and geese per year were dying from lead poisoning in the U.S. alone prior to the 1991 lead shot ban. I don't want any pictures of sick birds, or examples of some small fraction of that number that had one or two pieces of lead shot in their belly. If cavemen had cameras, they could also show me pictures of dead or sick ducks. Ducks and geese have been dying for eons. I don't want so-called studies with more holes in them than a colander. Prove to us that the Federal lead shot ban was based upon verifiable facts and double-blind peer reviewed data... the gold standard for good science.
Since you won't be able to do that, you can always fall back on childish games and less than brilliant attempts to discredit me with semantics.
