Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Why 17 caliber bullets need to go away. Save the planet and children!

It never stops does it. But at least this article seems less rabid than most.

Varmint hunters' ammo selection influences lead exposure in avian scavengers
Varmint hunters' choice of ammunition plays a role in the amount of lead that scavengers such as golden eagles could ingest, a new study shows, and offers a way to minimize the lead exposure to wildlife.
Using a new bullet-fragment recovery technique known as "digestion," the research also suggests that radiographs, or X-rays, a common tool for estimating how much of the toxic metal left is behind in shot pests or game animals, tend to produce low estimates.
A team of researchers that included Oregon State University undergraduate student Mason Wagner and U.S. Geological Survey scientists collected 127 Belding's ground squirrel carcasses from alfalfa fields in southern Oregon and northern California.
Eleven western states produce roughly 40 percent of the U.S.'s alfalfa, and burrowing mammals such as ground squirrels and prairie dogs can cause significant yield loss. Shooting the rodents is an important form of pest control as well as a popular recreational pastime throughout the West.
The carcasses are typically left on the fields, where avian scavengers like eagles, hawks and kestrels descend upon the carrion to feed both themselves and their nestlings.
This study looked at how much lead remained in the carcasses and how that correlated with the type of bullet used. Models were also created to estimate from radiographs the amount of lead left in a carcass and the potential effect of the lead on nestlings' mortality, growth and production of an enzyme critical to the blood's ability to carry oxygen.
Results of the study by Oregon State's College of Agricultural Sciences and the USGS were recently published in PLOS ONE.
The research found 80 percent of shot carcasses had detectible fragments of lead. The study also found bullet type didn't have an effect on the number of fragments, but it did influence the mass of the retained fragments. Also, smaller carcasses showed more "pass-through," i.e. less retained lead.
Squirrels shot with high-velocity, high-mass .17-caliber Super Mag bullets, for example, had 28 times the retained fragment mass of those shot with .22-caliber solid bullets. One percent of the Super Mags' original mass was left behind, by far the highest percentage of any ammo type, and the Super Mag fragments also dispersed more than two times farther through the carcass - making them more likely to be eaten by a scavenging animal.
Modeling suggested that hawk and eagle nestlings fed regularly with shot ground squirrels could likely lose more than half the production of the key enzyme ALAD throughout the nestling period, though no nestlings would be expected to die of lead poisoning. They could, though, eat enough lead to impair late-nestling-stage growth, but by then they would have done most of their growing anyway.
The digestion procedure for extracting bullet fragments involved processing carcasses into a solution that was run through sieves and a gold-prospecting sluice box. Researchers used digestion on 30 carcasses to determine a relationship between digestion results and radiography results.
"We found that radiographs are not very accurate at estimating how much lead is left in a carcass," said study co-author Collin Eagles-Smith, a USGS ecologist and OSU courtesy assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife. "They underestimate density when there are more small fragments. Small ones are the pieces that are more digestible and likely to enter the circulatory system."
Radiography has also been used to estimate how much lead is present in shot game animals such as deer and elk.
In addition to providing a check on the accuracy of estimating via radiography, the research also suggests a way for hunters to minimize the amount of lead left in varmint carcasses.
"The sheer number of carcasses after a hunting session is a challenge to pick up, assuming you can even find all of the carcasses," said lead author Garth Herring, also a USGS ecologist. "Picking up every last carcass is not realistic, but there are choices people can make regarding ammunition that may result in smaller amounts of lead in the carcasses left behind."
Eagles-Smith noted that rodenticides, an alternative to shooting, have their own toxicological implications.
"These pests are really an economic threat to farmers, and shooting them is one method to control their numbers," he said. "Choosing an ammunition type, such as .22-caliber solid bullets, that creates substantially fewer fragments can be a way to minimize lead exposure to scavengers and other wildlife."
Explore further: White-tailed eagles avoid large bullet fragments during consumption of carcasses
More information: Garth Herring et al, Ground Squirrel Shooting and Potential Lead Exposure in Breeding Avian Scavengers, PLOS ONE (2016). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0167926


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-12-varmint-hunters-ammo-exposure-avian.html#jCp

I used to shoot gophers on a friends place and the only caveat was to pick them up and take them to another mutual friend who rehabilitated raptors for food. Never poisoned any of his birds...

Actually that is one of the points in the article, that the lead fragments might stunt thier growth but probably wouldn't kill them. Considering the source is from an Oregon university, I was amazed that is was actually a pretty well reasoned article.

So they are basing this info on rimfire cartridges??

Best I can tell they are talking about using non soft point, jacketed .22 caliber bullets. Ive burned up a ton of those in surplus 5.56 and they usally kill a ground squirrel or prairie dog when you hit them.

Didn't know I was saving the world when I was doing it either.

17 Super Mag is a rimfire. Waters get muddy when they mention the .22 but I was taking it to mean 22 LR solids.

Dunno though.

You could certainly be right too. These are university people, so there brains are bound to be half rotted by liberal crap. Hard to tell.

I don't shoot a 17 Super Mag, but my 17 Rem did tend to seemingly vaporize the bullet on contact (Some loads before contact).

We have enough eagles, hawks and other raptors, so what if a few die.. As long as there are a couple of them that is enough..

Same thing a bud says of his 17 Remington loaded with 20 grain V-Maxs.

A-Fugking-Men.

And Happy New Year, WCH.




Travis

I shoot ground squirrels in the area they were speaking of...

thousands of them...

There is no shortage of birds to eat the remains...

actually gun fire is like a dinner bell to the birds...

Eagles and Hawks will come and sit on irrigation wheels and wait patiently for us to quit shooting in one direction, and when we start shooting at another direction, they will come down and chow out...

my point is, I don't see any dwindling of their numbers over the years....

Same here. More birds of prey and less rabbits and quail.

Coincidence??

I don't see any less Hawks than years past. Sounds like someone just doesn't want others shooting squeeks!

Wouldn't bother me if all of em die.

sorry guys......I like Eagles.......

Have two pair that follow my Tacoma around all summer...

yes...rifle shots are the dinner bell......

this one landed a mere 20' away from my table for this pic...

Where the hell is the outrage and studies surrounding those stupid inefficient windmills that kill the hell out of all the raptors?

The Greens love windmills as a source of clean renewable energy, so if a few birds are killed it is just collateral damage. But if those same birds die due to something that they don't like, they are up in arms.