Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game LEAD BAN for Big Game Hunting Bullets: Proof: "We're poisoning eagles, our national symbol,"- LINK

From now on its only wolf and humpback for me.

What is needed with this study is the information on WHERE the hunters and non-hunters in the study came from.

I'd be willing to bet that rural folk a) are more likely to hunt and b) have lower lead levels due to their rural environment.

I've seen bald eagles up where I hunt but I have never seen one feeding on a gut pile. Just saying.

Brooksrange, what are you going hunting for? How long will you be gone? When you get back, let us know how your hunting trip went, and while you're at it, check into the mercury levels that occur naturally in commercially harvested fish. When you get that one figured out for us, then we can get back to the lead bullet topic. Tim

I have followed this thread for awhile and I was just wondering if anyone here knows where this brooksrange guy is from or if someone is going to call him out. Wonder if he has any ties to barnes products. Sure seems to like to copper products, as do I but this is riduculous. HAPPY HUNTING

There is a tendency to swallow whole any "scientifc" report from anywhere. Often when enough of these are done they turn out to be contradictory, and the results of many turn out to be obviously bought and paid for.

The so-called "study" that started all this debate was initiated by a doctor with obvious anti-hunting prejudices. Some of the frozen packages of ground meat he submitted had already been opened.

I have read a lot of the lead studies, including the one done near Jackson Hole, Wyoming on ravens, and while there does seem to be an elevated lead level in some scavenger's blood around hunting season, it drops afterward. Whether or not this constant up and down has a long-term effect nobody seems to know. I also tend to distrust any study involving hunting done anywhere in the California university system--where many of the condor studies were done.

There is no doubt that lead poisoning from projectiles has affected some wildlife over the decades, but only where the shooting is extremely concentrated, as it was on a few duck marshes before non-toxic shot--or with the ravens on the elk range near Jackson.

My wife and I eat game meat (mostly taken with lead-core bullets and lead-alloy shot, though not always) except when dining out now and then. We butcher our own animals, and have both had our blood tested in the past year or so during routine medical examinations, and lead didn't show in either result.

I am not dismissing the possibility of lead poisoning by any means, but to suddenly proclaim it a major factor because of a few so-called studies is indeed rather alarmist. I am going to wait for more extensive and, uh, balanced data.
_________________________
JB

"New opinions are always suspect, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common." -John Locke

Well said.

Here is the equation:
EPA + Enviro wackos + Obama = Total lead ban
It isn't going to matter how valid or scientific the lead study was. There is enough data no matter how bogus to justify a lead ban. Get mentally prepared, its going to happen.
If the enviro wackos can repeatedly shut down multi million dollar natural resource drilling, a lead ban will be no contest.

Brooksrange: Oh boy!
I predicted this many months ago when I heard what the Californicaters were doing out there in northern California!
I hoped it would NOT spread - but unfortunately, it has!
Sheesh!
It seems like the "anti's" will try any ruse as long as it interferes with or makes more difficult and/or expensive to Hunt and shoot!
Dim future indeed!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I don't know "brooksrange", nor do I particularly want to. But I do know Randy Brooks, and I can guarantee you this guy has no connection with Barnes, nor would Randy, Coni and Jessica tolerate it if he/she tried to claim or establish one. They still make lead core bullets (Barnes Originals) and have no plans to stop making them. Nor do they support the lead ban in California.

You might contemplate contacting Barnes, or at least reading Randy's comments on the issue on their website, before you insinuate that they are somehow involved in or supporting junk sscience designed to lead to lead bans.

Dennis

not insinuating just wondering, not meaning to offend anyone. HAPPY HUNTING

So we don't have condors?
So what?
We don't have mammoths or sabertooths anymore, nor do I miss them.
Eagles are doing just fine thank you, I see them daily.
Get a life brooks!

Just because the messenger has little tact and failed to read "How to win friends and influence neighbors" doesn't neccessarily mean he is wrong.

I think the jury is still out, but definately bears more scrutiny. As I am a veterinarian, I will give the vets in the story from the Minnesota Vet school a call and see if the info is accurate.

If the story is accurate, and I say if because I don't believe anything on the internet unless it can be backed up, then I think we have to at least consider rethinking using lead bullets. 100 sick birds with 20% death rate sounds like something to be concerned about to me. Doesn't matter if there are plenty of eagles flying around, if it is a problem, it is a problem.

And if 100-125 are presented for treatment every year, then there are untold numbers of unseen, unreported, unpresented eagles with the same problem.

So, if this story holds up, you have to take one of two options. Either you say: "so what, I don't care if a hundred or so eagles die as long as there are some left".

Or you have to say: "Maybe we need to take a closer, reasoned look at this and see if there are options that will be acceptable"

That said, I will be hunting next weekend for whitetail here in Texas with Remington core-lokts. Maybe I can poison the wild hogs that clean up the gut pile!

I will report back after I visit with the vets at the University of Minn.

I figured it out. Brooksrange owns stock in Barnes and has a vested interest in seeing lead banned from bullets.

Brooksrange, you are not alone in your concern about lead fragments in wild game. I switched over to copper this season after my 2 year old showed elevated lead levels in his blood. My question to the skeptics, why not take extra care with our kids? Plenty of guys shoot copper because it performs better. Great. I shoot it because it performs better and guarantees no lead in my boy's dinner (I also shoot bismuth shot). What I find really interesting is the true antis (anti-environment) always accuse people who raise concerns about lead bullets of shilling for environmental organizations, but who has the real vested interest in keeping lead on the menu? Yep, the gun industry.

Just a question plattski.. Did you think to investigate the excellent possibility that the elevated lead level was from any other source or sources????? OR did you automatically presume it was from bullet frag?? Ingestion takes a pretty fair quantity to elevate blood levels. Lead does NOT break down easily in frag state or chunks. POWDERED lead or lead fumes in an inclosed area are a different story. Aspirating nearly anything brings almost instant and higher results. I have found musket balls from the French and Indian Wars that are intact. I have to conclude that lead doesn't dissove very easliy and the soil up here is noted for dissolving iron and steel in pretty short order comparatively fast. Maybe you should not rule out that your son's elevated levels had OTHER origins.

my bet is that Plattski's 2 year old had lead poisening from another source. Furthermore I would be willing to listen to an objective study done by non partisan scientist (if you could find such a thing). My uncles, brother, friends, have hunted deer with lead bullets all of our lives. We don't keep shoulders shot with lead bullets, but eat the rest. My IQ is the same as it was in high school, the same as Obama's by the way, and yet I did not go to Harvard or Yale! People with an agenda will lie, steal, cheat, poisen and even kill another human to get their way. Hold on to your hats people, this is the latest scheme to elevate the expense of hunting.

I would agree that the most likely source of lead in my youngster was not bullets but old lead paint in my house, which we either removed or painted over. Anyone recall why lead was banned from paint? How about gasoline?? Were any of you get outraged at either of those bans? No, and we still have paint and gas, because industry came up with perfectly good alternatives after they gave up fighting the change. Sounds like the gun industry right now. Anyway, when we realized our kid had too much lead in his blood we decided to do everything we could to eliminate it from his environment and that included lead bullet fragments. I've seen the various fragmentation studies - are you saying bullets don't fragment, or that no lead fragments remain in wild game meat? I disagree with some of you who say that a couple of little lead fragments are okay for kids to eat. So solving the problem was easy, I just changed bullets. I don't see it as a dark conspiracy to take my guns, just a simple change in my consumer behavior. It costs a little bit more, not much, but I'm really pleased with copper bullet performance on 1 elk, 3 antelope, 3 deer. I eat a lot of game but I don't shoot a lot of bullets at them so the added cost is nominal. I still reload lead for practice shooting at the range, just no more for my food. What is the big problem? I'm not saying you all have to change over. Go ahead and eat lead, it doesn't bother me. But if the results come back that lead is poisoning our wildlife I'll be comfortable with no more lead in hunting ammunition. I like hunting but I could care less what my bullets are made out of as long as they work. Copper is an excellent material and lead is just a habit,. I don't share the concern that taking the lead out of bullets is part of a plan to take away our firearms. The thing I find curious is how angry some of you seem toward anyone who even raises a question about lead in bullets. Take your own advice and calm down, follow the research and keep and open mind.

"Take your own advice and calm down, follow the research and keep and open mind."

Good advice for both sides

You can keep your mind as open as you want. The EPA and their ilk have a lead ban in their agenda. It may take a few years, there may be a sunset clause but it will happen. They will pick away at all things involved with hunting and the Second Amendment.