Here are the facts: Deer hunters (and other big game hunters, but mostly deer in my part of the world) have to deal with the fact that eagles are dying from lead poisoning. Lead shot, as opposed to lead fragments, is pretty easy to identify. So, unless those examining dead eagles are finding lead SHOT in the birds' digestive system, bird hunters are pretty much in the clear. Not so with eagles, which--as anyone who lives in places where eagles and deer coexist will verify--scavenge dead deer. And we know that hunters don't recover all the deer they shoot. So if those eagles have ingested lead fragments, those concerned with eagles dying are going to make the connection to shot but unrecovered deer. Deer hunters can ignore that if they wish, but I don't think that's a good idea--because the charge won't go away just because they ignore it. Given their numbers, seems to me they'd be smart to do some research and attempt to identify the specific source of any lead fragments found in dead eagles' digestive systems.

That being said, the point I was making with the thousands of eagles USFWS wants to allow the wind energy companies to kill annually--which seems to have escaped Keith and Craig--is this: Even if the occasional eagle dies from ingesting lead fragments from bullets (or, for that matter, lead shot), it is likely that the lead poisoning deaths directly related to hunting are only a tiny percentage of those caused by wind turbines. So if the eagle lobby's agenda is really to protect eagles and not to attack hunters and hunting, then they're obviously expending their effort in the wrong direction.

And Keith, your French . . . isn't. But I'll use the verb from which "ignorant" comes and apply it to you . . . as in ignoring you, since you have nothing of interest to contribute. And when you quote YOURSELF, that's not quoting ME. You can't find any quote from me in which I am "refusing to accept that there are many more bio-available sources of lead that kill birds." Only someone as ignorant as the guy you see when you look in the mirror would believe that only lead from bullets or shot might be the only source of lead poisoning in eagles . . . or any other BIRDS. (Note the last word of your quote. You switched from eagles in specific to birds in general. Hence, the validity of my reference to the potential source of lead in woodcock . . . which is a bird, isn't it?) I rest my case.