Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Non-toxic debate - please read this and comment.

It's a flawed theory to imply the same effects of lead toxicity in a human to a raptor. For a fair comparison a human would need to ingest an equal percentage of lead per body weight to that of a raptor and above that the body's chelating abilities would need to be factored as well.

Point being a fragment or two to a human isn't going to do much, but to an eagle it is likely deadly. Which, exacerbates the BS argument that human's will get lead poisoning because eagles do.

Again, too many nuances in this discussion.

This is what I take from the whole lead issue, but I still doubt the actual mortality to eagles. I am seeing eagles in unprecedented numbers, to the detriment of all small game. I would rather see fewer eagles and more small game...

I agree I don't want rules on this... but I do use copper bullets because over the yeras they have been better 100% performers than any other bullets I"ve used.

I could make do with whatever is out there, just by picking bullets for uses, but prefer the copper ones.

I hate to think I"m helping antis, and in the meantime Barnes will get all of my serious business.

aS to lead... the crap with waterfowl was BS too IMHO.

*****See my new post which shows how wind farms are now allowed to kill unlimited number of birds*****
Yet we are supposed to have nightmares over lead bullets.

The lead levels in humans and eagles getting lead poisoning from being hit by cars are your creation, I said nothing about either, but them you never were much to let fact get in the way of you spewing BS, so it just falls into the category of same BS different day.



Unless you have someone better to ask, I'd start right there.



More of the same BS, different day. I never said boo about the eagle decline being caused by lead.



As have I. But... those pellets ht at 600-900 fps and leave very little lead in the game.



And you complied with the safety measures and had the monthly blood tests to be sure you complied.



While the monos are not the best bullet for all situations, there are quite excellent non-toxic bullets available for almost all situations. Yeah, likely the antis will try to ban lead bullets everywhere, and their argument won't make any better sense than yours about does eagles getting lead poisoning from cars hitting them.

Personally, I could live without big game bullets made with lead. Copper works better and doesn't cost enough more than other premium bullets to matter at all. That we have supply issues where you cannot go into a store and expect to find exactly what you want now is not fun. It won't get better if lead is banned, but then, nobody banned .22 LR lead bullets and finding what I need for that is a Lot harder right now. I can't find any 35 grain VMaxs either, and my LGS just laughs when I ask if they can order either one.

Life will go on. Where I live there is stiff competition between eagles for territory. They scarcely have a mile between nests. More eagles will inevitably mean more ways for eagles to be killed. You want to do some good, look at the numbers and make sense of the additional mortality vectors that are and will become more common as the population goes up. Be able to explain things like eagle mortality from eating gut piles as a population dynamics vector and make it simple enough that antis can understand it.

This looks like pretty good research to phase out lead bullets.

Millions of doves die from lead, human hunters have 1.27 lead level, where non-hunters are 0.84, i.e. over 50% higher.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wild-game-deer-venison-condors-meat-lead-ammunition-ban/

There you go!
That is a 5 year old study which was debunked.
The meat packages were gone through to find bloodshot meat and only samples from parts containing lead were included in the study. Also the good DR was dreaming when he did the Xrays of deer. How do tiny particles of lead get throughout the body without causing tissue damage and IF you found one while eating wouldn't you spit it out?
Can't remember which mag had the article about this study, Might have been American Hunter but whatever it is pure BS.
As someone already posted- When you draw your conclusion before you do your research, the results are predictable.

Which study are you referencing? The pig study or this reference from the article?
That realization led Cornatzer and a radiologist last year to X-ray 100 packages of venison that had been donated by a sportsmen group to a food bank. About 60 percent of the packages contained lead-shot fragments, even though it�s common practice among hunters to remove meat around the wound.


If it is the former, have you read the study? How did you determine that it was only sample parts containing lead?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2669501/






Read it again, he viewed the x-ray during a presentation which prompted him to perform his own separate analysis of venison packages donated to a food bank.

Also a point of distinction is that fluoroscopically visible is not the same as biting into a chunk of lead and spitting it out.

Too many nuances in this discussion.

Please explain to us how the Minnesota sheep study found lead as much as 18 inches distal from the POI. and how those pieces being mostly to small to see or feel get spit out.

The condor situation is easily resolved. A more direct form of lead poisoning should do it.

Yes, that's been debunked too, there was a study done, if I could only remember where I put it......

The study referencing elevated lead in the food bank venison and lead "throughout" the deer was the part that was debunked in one of the hunting magazines which, again, was American Hunter IIRC. When the folks from the magazine examined the sampling technique for the foodbank study they found that the packages of meat were Xrayed prior to the sampling and that only those containing foreign objects were included in the study. Bottom line: If this stuff was true, we as hunters would have died out or been sterile years ago.
I have no dog in this hunt having been in the first lead free area from the beginning and using lead free bullets for hunting before they were mandated. My only objection is that this will be forced on the rest of you based on the same trumped up "evidence" that was used here.

Do you use lead free primers?

raptors are not humans. they're not even mammals

I help treat several (like 5-10) eagles every fall & winter that are:

1) picked up by F&G with paralysis
2) picked up in line-of-sight to a gut pile
3) far above the toxic blood lead levels via independent lab
4) respond clinically to chelating agents like Calcium EDTA
5) lead levels go down on subsequent blood draws due to #4

keys here for the agenda driven:

only happens during open hunting seasons

only found near gut piles

verified by bloodwork

stops happening in units that go lead-free

Forget copper, forget lead.

Go straight to depleted uranium.

That'll really drive the antis berserk.

The fact is there are a lot of paid anti hunting, anti gun propagandist out there, spreading false science as fact. Paid liars spreading Anti American slop. If you believe the trash then vote for the hog sloppers, you will get the Non America they are getting paid to create. Check their bank statements, You are likely to find indirect links to places like the GATES Foundation

I'm having trouble understanding this. Are you saying folks in Utah gut shoot deer regularly? That all gut shots retain the bullet? That the raptors seek out the bullets? I can understand this scenario playing itself out on rare occasions but are you saying the above occurs with regularity?

I don't want to put words into his mount but I think that's why he said.



We saw similar results with golden eagles and turkey vultures in CA when the ban was implemented...Condors though? not so much, but that hasn't stopped the perpetuation of red herring arguments from lead ban proponents only to be echoed by more red herring arguments.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017656

Blacktailer - you very well may be overthinking this. Two factoids that may clarify for you:

1) Premium meat for raptors = lung,liver,and kidney. Given the choice, they will consume this first , even on a fresh kill, nearly every time.

A deer/elk that was recovered by a hunter will likely have been shot in the lungs,liver, or kidney , no? You may take the liver home with you but do you take the lungs home with you?


2.) 100 micrograms per deciliter is a fatal dose of lead to a raptor. For a 3 to 6 kg eagle, that is 300-600 micrograms or 0.005 to 0.01 grains

so 1/100th of a grain (or less) is a fatal dose. A jacketed bullet loses 30-50 grains as it passes through the lungs and lodges into the shoulder for you to recover and weigh / photograph. How much of that 30-50grains is in the lungs ? Half ? Even if it's only 10% (5 grains), that's still 500x the fatal dose for an eagle.

it's a tiny, tiny amount of lead --certainly not an amount like spitting out a #8 pellet.

the majority of eagles with comfirmed blood lead levels above 100mcg/dl do not have visible lead fragments in their GI tracts on radiographs