According to this lawsuit, that might be the future of hunting in the state. It doesn't say whether this is for all hunting, but their mention of copper projectiles seems to imply rifles. Maybe we should buy stock in Barnes?

poisoned condors?

There must be more to the story than that skimpy write up. Birds go missing, so they conclude they may have ingested lead? Is elemental lead even that toxic? I know many lead compounds are readily absorbed by the body if ingested, but I recall reading pure lead doesn't enter so readily. Anyway, the article says CA was thinking about banning lead in ammo anyway. How much do those MRX bullets cost?

edit: I google'd around and found that while elemental lead is poorly absorbed through the skin, it does enter the body just fine if inhaled or ingested.

Certainly wouldn't surprise me that they will ban it.... Here in Arizona they strongly recommend recovering any leaded bullets that don't pass through because of the California condors.... If not, they prefer that you bury the gut pile/carcass... Doesn't leave much for the coyote - targets - to eat ...

Make no mistake though, if your rifle likes Barnes TSX/MRX you can't really go wrong with them... You will find a few other lesser known companies are producing some high end all copper bullets at lesser prices then Barnes... I'm sure they'll be jumping on the bandwagon if California bans leaded bullets...

Ken....

Here's the PROBLEM with their whole argument:

quote:

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.

First off, they don't have a clue what happened, and it is in print. They don't know if the birds or dead or not. Point 2, it is only speculation that any death Could have been from lead. Any good defense attorney will rip this argument into shreds.

Anytime you start reading words in an argument like: "may be", "could be", "might be", etc. etc., they don't have a leg to stand on. I can't see a judge ruling in favor of the use of non lead projectiles based only on speculation without proof, carcasses, blood samples, etc.

quote:

but remember doc, this is california we're talking about here... anything is possible...

Yea, I know, but from what I read, it doesn't take a seasoned attorney to send these plaintiffs home with red marks on their arses. It's an argument without any real substance.

I was also thinking that same thing. They don't have any proof (of anything, including the fact that these missing birds are even dead), so how can they be sure it has anything to do with lead bullets at all? I don't think the suit has much chance of winning, but probably more of a chance in CA than other states.

quote:

but remember doc, this is california we're talking about here... anything is possible...

I'll point out that this is a Federal lawsuit that alledges a 'taking' under the Endangered Species Act and that's not specific to California.

And FYI, legislation to mandate this through the state legislature failed and the CA Fish and Game Commission rejected the proposed lead based bullet ban as well.

Problem is that data does exist to make this case under the ESA. Here's some of the latest,

Molecular fingerprinting leads to culprit in condor lead poisoning

Center for Biomolecular Science & Engineering News
August 31, 2006
Written by Tim Stephens

California Condors have been reintroduced to Big Sur wilderness area since 1997, bringing these birds, which can have 9.5-foot wingspans, back from the brink of extinction. Photo by Daniel Bianchetta, courtesy of the Ventana Wildlife Society

A study led by environmental toxicologists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has confirmed what wildlife biologists have long suspected: Bullet fragments and shotgun pellets in the carcasses of animals killed by hunters are the principal sources of lead poisoning in California condors that have been reintroduced to the wild.

Lead poisoning is a major factor limiting the success of efforts to rebuild populations of the endangered California condor. Since the mid-1980s, condors have been bred in captivity and released back into the wild in California, Arizona, and Baja California. The birds, which feed on carrion, can ingest lead from ammunition in animal carcasses or gut piles left behind by hunters.

The UCSC researchers used a "fingerprinting" technique based on the unique isotope ratios found in different sources of lead. The technique enabled them to match the lead in blood samples from condors to the lead in ammunition. Their findings were published online today by the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

"There had been anecdotal reports for years about condors being exposed to lead from ammunition, but there was never enough clear evidence to document the extent of the problem. We knew that we could probably identify the sources of the lead using isotopic signatures," said Donald Smith, professor and chair of environmental toxicology at UCSC and a coauthor of the paper.

The study was spearheaded by Smith's graduate student, Molly Church, who is now at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Veterinary Medicine and is first author of the paper. Church worked with researchers at several institutions and organizations, including the Ventana Wildlife Society and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to collect and analyze blood and tissue samples from California condors. She also analyzed ammunition obtained from a variety of sources throughout central California.

"We sampled the ammunition that these birds are most likely to encounter in the remains of hunted game, and we found that lead from those sources can account for the lead in the blood of 77 percent of the birds tested," said Church, who undertook the study after spending a summer monitoring condors as a volunteer with the Ventana Wildlife Society.

The researchers obtained blood samples from 18 free-flying condors in central California and 8 birds that had been raised in captivity and were still in holding pens waiting to be released. At the time of the study, this sample represented 43 percent of the wild condor population in all of California.

The lead levels in the blood of prerelease condors were low, and the lead was isotopically similar to background lead in the California environment. In the free-flying condors, however, blood lead levels were higher and the lead had a different isotopic composition that approached the composition of the lead in ammunition. In the most severely lead-poisoned birds, the blood lead matched exactly the composition of the lead in ammunition, Smith said.

"We found that in the birds with elevated blood lead, the lead isotope ratios fit a mixing model in which one source of lead is the background environment and the other source is ammunition. The results show that lead ammunition in animals shot and left in the field is the predominant source of lead exposure in condors," he said.

Kelly Sorenson, executive director of the Ventana Wildlife Society, said the study provides a solid basis for efforts to resolve the problem of lead exposure in condors. Possible solutions range from legislation limiting the use of lead ammunition to voluntary programs to encourage the use of alternative ammunition in areas where condors are known to scavenge for food, he said.

"There are different ways to get at this problem, but no matter how it is resolved in California, this research was desperately needed not only to confirm the source of the lead but to demonstrate the extent to which ammunition is contributing to the problem," Sorenson said.

In another part of the study, the researchers showed that feathers can be used to monitor lead exposure in condors. They analyzed lead in tissue samples and a feather from a condor that had died of lead poisoning in Arizona. They found that the feather, sampled sequentially along its length, provided a record of the bird's history of lead exposure.

"This shows that we can use feathers to look at the history of lead exposure in individual condors, and we're just starting to do that now with birds that have been reintroduced in California," Smith said.

The elevated lead levels in reintroduced condors are cause for concern even when they are below the level that would cause death from acute lead poisoning, he added. Although it is very difficult to evaluate sublethal effects of toxic substances in wild animals, he said, lead is well known to cause neurological problems in vertebrate animals at relatively low levels of exposure.

"The lead levels that we commonly see in condors are well above the levels considered a concern for human health. If we saw those levels in children, they'd be diagnosed as lead-poisoned and medically treated," Smith said.

Church said she hopes the findings prompt greater efforts not only to reduce lead exposure in condors but to reduce lead contamination in California in general.

"Lead is a well-known toxin that should no longer be getting into the environment, and it would truly be a shame if lead poisoning negated the significant condor conservation efforts and achievements that have taken place over the past several decades," she said.

In addition to Church, Smith, and Sorenson, the coauthors of the paper include UCSC toxicologist Roberto Gwiazda, Robert Risebrough of the Bodega Bay Institute, Page Chamberlain of Stanford University, Sean Farry and William Heinrich of the Peregrine Fund, and Bruce Rideout of the Zoological Society of San Diego. The study was funded by a grant from the UC Toxic Substances Research and Teaching Program, an American Museum of Natural History Frank M. Chapman Research Award, the Bodega Bay Institute, and the Peregrine Fund.

And here's the abstract of the study,

Ammunition is the Principal Source of Lead Accumulated by California Condors Re-Introduced to the Wild

Molly E. Church,$ Roberto Gwiazda, Robert W. Risebrough, Kelly Sorenson, C. Page Chamberlain, Sean Farry, William Heinrich, Bruce A. Rideout,# and Donald R. Smith*

Department of Environmental Toxicology, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, Bodega Bay Institute, 2711 Piedmont Avenue, Berkeley, California 94705, Ventana Wildlife Society, 19045 Portola Drive, Suite F-1, Salinas, California 93924, Department of Geological and Environmental Science, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, The Peregrine Fund, World Center for Birds of Prey, 5668 W. Flying Hawk Lane, Boise, Idaho 83709, and Zoological Society of San Diego, P.O. Box 120551, San Diego, California 92112

Received for review March 30, 2006

Revised manuscript received July 19, 2006

Accepted July 20, 2006

Abstract:

The endangered California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus) was reduced to a total population of 22 birds by the end of 1982. Their captive-bred descendants are now being released back into the wild in California, Arizona, and Baja California, where monitoring indicates they may accumulate lead to toxic levels. Fragments of ammunition in the carcasses of game animals such as deer, elk, and feral pigs not retrieved by hunters or in gut piles left in the field have been considered a plausible source of the lead, though little direct evidence is available to support this hypothesis. Here, we measured lead concentrations and isotope ratios in blood from 18 condors living in the wild in central California, in 8 pre-release birds, and in diet and ammunition samples to determine the importance of ammunition as a source of exposure. Blood lead levels in pre-release condors were low (average 27.7 ng/mL, SD 4.9 ng/mL) and isotopically similar to dietary and background environmental lead in California. In contrast, blood lead levels in free-flying condors were substantially higher (average 246 ng/mL, SD 229 ng/mL) with lead isotopic compositions that approached or matched those of the lead ammunition. A two-endmember mixing model defined by the background 207Pb/206Pb ratio of representative condor diet samples (0.8346) and the upper 207Pb/206Pb ratio of the ammunition samples (0.8184) was able to account for the blood lead isotopic compositions in 20 out of the 26 live condors sampled in this study (i.e., 77%). Finally, lead in tissues and in a serially sampled growing feather recovered post-mortem from a lead-poisoned condor in Arizona evidence acute exposure from an isotopically distinct lead source. Together, these data indicate that incidental ingestion of ammunition in carcasses of animals killed by hunters is the principal source of elevated lead exposure that threatens the recovery in the wild of this endangered species.

IIRC the condor is not too bright ,some of those released flew into power lines and were fried. I guess then all power lines should be removed !! Many millions have been spent to save a bird that even in the past was in very small numbers.

quote:

Originally posted in Skinner's reference:
"There are different ways to get at this problem,...

That is the statement that should really concern everyone.

quote:

Originally posted by the_captain:
According to this lawsuit, that might be the future of hunting in the state. It doesn't say whether this is for all hunting, but their mention of copper projectiles seems to imply rifles. Maybe we should buy stock in Barnes?

Well, I suppose they mean rifles, since they're not controlling the use of lead projectiles by gang members or police in the cities.

Isn't copper a known biocide, used for bottom paint on ships for that reason ( and decimating harbor-bottom wildlife as the result )?
Can we get an estimate of how much improvement copper is, over lead?

Skinner: Interesting studies. Makes me wonder who is monitoring the turkey vulture population for isotopic lead profiles matching those found in ammunition. One would think the exposures would be much, much higher among these abundant scavengers. There could certainly be worse fates for California hunters than being forced to use Triple Shocks.

Just being silly but I've gotta ask...

Other than research grants and attorney fees, what do these 50-60 Condors provide?

irwin

It provides 'feel good' emotions for the bambi types .That saves them psychiatrist fees to deal with guilt feelings....Yes copper is a biocide .In people and probably animals and birds copper is an essential nutrient in small amounts but toxic in large amounts. Bismuth is also toxic in people .I have no idea whether is toxic in birds . Sometimes in our haste to remove a problem chemical [that has been extensively studied] we replace it with a chemical who's dangers is largely unknown !!

califrekinornia also has a big environmental impact study and strict restrictions for land use to protect Sage Rats!

If they dont already, soon california will be protecting flees and ticks and misquitos and you will have to pay a hugh fee to do a environmental impact study on flees, ticks, and squitos is you want a building permit.

This is just another way for the Leftys to push for more Gun control, et al Ammo control. With out affordable ammo all of your firearms will be worthless. They don't have any proof of anything, just an angle to handicap your rights from a "Save the Condors" angle. Used to be save the Children, just a different angle here!!!

Guys...anything is possible here...we now have $16.80 feral pig tags and $7.10 upland game bird stamp. The basic license is now $34.90...that's right its $42.00 shoot doves and quail...I think that is more than some guys pay for deer.

The fine for fishing without a license is $750. the fine for Fishing and not displaying your license above you waist was $1000.00 last time I checked.

You have to own a "gun safe" to buy a gun in this state or bring a trigger lock when you pick up a gun.

I've been hearing rumblings about banning lead bullets to protect the condors since the early '90's, so I don't know how serious they are.

Ironically, just above the area where we dump almost all of the guts, skins, etc. from the game we take is the biggest eagles nest I've ever seen in this area. A pair of eagles are the first animals to drop in after our "visits". We've essentially raised a nest full of eaglets every spring for many years off of what we've shot.

Kyler

Trying to save the CA condor is a battle against evolution -- they're being beat by better scavangers/predatory birds. If lead ammo was a problem, then vultures, eagles, hawks, etc would all be dying, all over the country -- same pattern of die-off that DDT caused.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
Trying to save the CA condor is a battle against evolution -- they're being beat by better scavangers/predatory birds. If lead ammo was a problem, then vultures, eagles, hawks, etc would all be dying, all over the country -- same pattern of die-off that DDT caused.

Please don't start with the whole evolution stuff.