Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Three Condor Deaths in Arizona and Utah ... Conversation with AZGFD

I just added a post to another form regarding three Condor Deaths in and around Arizona and Utah.

my post

What I failed to mention in that thread was a comment on the use of leaded ammo in the northern units and that is "why?"

[warning soapbox]

If G&F is asking us to voluntarily use non-lead ammunition in and around those area's to avoid such law suits, why not just use non-lead ammo?

I know the arguments about the ammo is too expensive; it won't give me the same accuracy; "why should I fix what ain't broke?". Here's why, it happen California.

I met a guy and his adult son a few seasons ago while hunting unit 9. The jerk saw I was putting a stalk on some deer and fired his rifle into the air from his (moving) truck. Fast forward to that night, we run into the same duo at a local gas station. We exchanged pleasantries and notes, he began to show me his custom ($3000+) 30-06 rifle. I asked if he was using non-lead ammo. "Hell no, why should I?" Not only was he using leaded ammo, he was using 150gr non-jacketed bullet.

So, am I just being naive? I mean, I use ammo with lead, just not in units where G&F has asks hunters not to use it. I categorize using non-lead ammo in and around those units with the same responsibility as picking up your trash from your campsite or putting out your campfire before you leave. If it gets the anti's a little more off our backs and gives them less fuel, why not?

Alright, I'm done.

HaYen this issue is along way from me but one question is there any real proof the lead in bullets is killing the Condor and not another source. I just think the chance of a Condor picking up lead from a hunters gut pile some what low.

Alan

If some are voluntarily running no lead in certain areas because of condors, it sounds like the anti's already won a few to their way of thinking.

I guess I won't fault the guy for not.

Beware of the great condor ammo-ban scam. In Calif., the antis managed to pass legislation outlawing the use of lead ammo not only in current condor habitat, but also IN HISTORIC CONDOR HABITAT, thereby outlawing the use of lead ammo in vast areas where there ARE NO CONDORS.

Considering how long lead ammo has been in use in the USA, and when you think about the amount of deer guts that haven been left around the place, how come Condors have no become extinct long ago?

No agency has had a political campaign to outlaw them....

They were extinct in the wild. The ENTIRE population of them is captured several times a year for lead abatement! I spent several days fishing in Marble Canyon a few years ago and had condors perched within 10 feet of my tent. They are amazing.


Fast forward to 2007. My son had a elk tag in unit 10. We got the propaganda from G&F, I think they even sent us a coupon for some copper bullets?? I loaded up 180 grain Fail Safes. They aren't lead free, but they don't fragment like a typical jacketed bullet. I think that the Peregrine fund is exaggerating the problem with lead but no doubt, it it real. I don't think they eat prairie dogs but I used some Barnes varmint bullets when hunting PDs in unit 10 this past summer. I will do my part to make neighborly concessions when possible.

I suspect that G&F is just being proactive to prevent or at least forestall a major conflict with these guys.

Have any birds been autopsied and found to have high levels of lead in their blood? You would think they'd just crap the stuff out. Breathing dust is the usual way of ingesting lead.

Yes, they blood test the LIVE birds frequently and have to treat them for lead poisoning!

By 1987 all the remaining wild condors were captured for a captive breeding program. It has been relatively successful but now lead seems to be the biggest killer. I don't know if hunters are to blame or not but certainly it is a possibility. I don't agree with lead-containing ammo bans but am willing to be more careful with carcasses than in the past.

I guess there are other places for the birds to ingest lead but it seems logical that bullet fragments in carcasses could be a prime source.

Here is a link to some of the lead studies.

lead in condors


routine lead testing??

Article about routine tests


According to this last article, apparently shotgun pellets in the body don't cause lead poisoning. I guess it has to be ingested??

I don't see any solid evidence.
The California study danced around with chest beating BS and said that the lead could have come from gut piles.

They have fed condors dead dairy calves from the central valley for years.
Our La Panza Cal Fire station has a cold storage box that the condor folks
kept said calves in.

You could just as easily speculate that the elevated lead came fro the dairy calves
via water from the San Joaquin valley.

To do the investigation correctly you have to eliminate all other possibilities.

The California study does not do that.

We REALLY have a lot of wackos here!

The real science is questionable as to the lead. The actual causes of death of most condors are high power lines (frying themselves or flying into them.) There has been a determined (and costly) effort to refute the previous studies, and it is effective - recent attempts to require lead-free shot for upland game in "teh zone" have been defeated. Similar efforts to make the ban effective state-wide are also being defeated, since the original studies are so faulty.

Yes, ingested lead will kill. However, it is not the huge problem it is made out to be.

Besides - why are turkey vultures thriving and they eat the same carrion as the condors????

Turkey vultures are in the same family as California condors but are anatomically different enough that they are classified in a different genus and species. Their digestive physiology is sufficiently different that exposure to lead in their diet is apparently always fatal without treatment. The lead is absorbed into the bloodstream and deposited in various tissues eventually resulting in organ failure and death.

Here are some articles that will get you started on the literature if you really want answers to your questions:

http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/press_releases/text.asp?pid=927

http://www.jwildlifedis.org/cgi/reprint/42/4/772.pdf

http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1647/2007-035.1

The science sounds like the same BS in Iowa. Tons of venison was wrongly thrown out due to misinformation from the same scientist involved in the condor lead study. Very happy we have no condors in my great state. Although they did stock lynx which has allowed them to pass a lot of endangered species legislation they couldn't until they had an actual victim.

They transplanted Lynx in Nebraska??????????

Are you sure about that?


Casey

I think that he must be in Colorado--incognito, no doubt.

No, they transplanted lynx without adequate populations of snowshoe hares to feed them right here in Colorado. Course you knew that. Now when they gradually die out again, we can perhaps stock wolverines or wolves.

"The science sounds like the same BS in Iowa. Tons of venison was wrongly thrown out due to misinformation from the same scientist involved in the condor lead study. "

Citation?

http://www.iowadnr.gov/other/hush/index.html
http://www.iowadnr.gov/other/hush/files/iowadnr_lead.pdf

Minnesota.....

No meat was thrown away here, to my knowledge.

Sorry, might have been North Dakota. This link says enough for me:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2130355/posts

I usually process my own game and have zero concern over lead exposure as a result to my family or myself.

Yeah, we had quite the brawl going on in the General Big Game Forum over that. Seems there was a shill for the lead free types. Didn't impress with brain power.