Possumblog

Oh, come on now.

Suit: Lead ammo in carrion kills condors

By TERENCE CHEA
The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Advocates for the California condor sued state wildlife regulators for allowing lead hunting ammunition despite concerns that the rare birds can die after eating carcasses contaminated with the pellets.

The environmentalists, who filed the federal suit Thursday in Los Angeles, claim the state is violating the Endangered Species Act. They want the state to require hunters to use ammunition made of copper or other materials.

One plaintiff, the San Francisco-based Center for Biological Diversity, said 46 of the giant vultures have died or disappeared after being released in California from 1992 through July 2006, and that lead poisoning may have factored into many of those deaths. [...]

Okay, let's try to look at this logically, which I know is a stretch given that you're dealing with a bunch of emotion-driven advocates here--but it seems these folks are saying hunters are leaving shot game in the woods.

Not likely--if you hunt, you take the animal with you. There may be very rare cases where a small animal is wounded and runs away and dies elsewhere, but this doesn't happen that often. There is the possibility that hunters who field dress their prey and leave the scraps for scavengers are leaving behind some lead in the carcass that might be ingested. Maybe.

But here's the thing--there aren't a lot of condors, but there are sure an awful lot of OTHER scavengers out there who will get to that dead animal or gut pile a lot quicker. To have a sufficient number of wounded animals who later die or piles of leftover scraps to have an effect on condor populations would require a HUGE amount of game escaping and dying off elsewhere or animals being field dressed.

Second, it's not clear from the report, but this doesn't seem to be an issue of lead shotgun pellets, but of center-fire rifle ammunition. Waterfowl really DO have a lead poisoning issue, where lead shot or lead fishing weights can be picked up by fish then ingested by the birds, or the birds can pick it up out of bottom silt. So there is some sense in keeping lead shotgun pellets out of bodies of water. But to extrapolate that to a different set of circumstances--which even the plaintiffs seem to be saying is nothing more than a conjectural possibility of harm--is an over-reach.

Again, is there really that big of a problem of people losing wounded game that is later eaten by a scavenger or predator? Are there that many piles of meat scraps left behind after a hunt? Probably not, again for the reason that there are simply not enough hunters wounding or killing enough animals to make it that large a component of lead in the food chain. If it were, it would seem that you would see the effects of it in the more numerous species of predators and scavengers, not just in one species of animal.

Which goes back to the idea presented in the story that this whole thing is fear over something that MIGHT be happening, not that it is something happening now. The article did not list any instances where it was proven that any of the birds died from lead poisoning. They mention that 46 birds died or disappeared since 1992. How are we to know what killed the disappeared birds without a carcass to test!? Of the ones that died and have been recovered, it would seem to be relatively simple to determine their proximate cause of death, yet the article still quotes that plaintiff as saying only that lead poisoning "may" have been a factor in "many" of the deaths. Look, it either killed the bird or it didn't, and if there's not evidence of it (in the birds that were actually found), then this is really looks like nothing more than a crass stunt.

Although you might find it difficult to believe, it might have nothing at all to do with bird safety.

Yes, I know--it's simply inconceivable!

But do consider that one of the parties in the suit, Physicians for Social Responsibility, considers as part of its mission to create a world free of gun violence. Their chosen method of reducing gun violence does not involve punishing people who commit crimes with guns, but eliminating all guns, including by forced confiscation if they can manage it. Except for those guns owned by the government. Failing that, they've shown quite an interest in limiting the types of ammunition people can buy. Again, except for the authorities.

Well, there's the gun control angle, then there's the irrational fear of the unknown angle that must be played upon, which brings us to The Natural Resources Defense Council. Remember the Alar-on-apples scare? Nothing like a little junk science thrown in the mix.

If this really is a problem, it can be fixed. But it would be nice to have actual data to examine rather than rely upon the doom-and-destruction fearmongering that seems to be such a big part of stuff like this.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at December 1, 2006 10:49 AM