This would take a lot of our Swaging fun away!

[Utah Shooter]

Just caught this on another forum.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/bald-eagle-crosshairs-us-fight-over-lead-bullets-095601272.html

[mold maker]

Same old BS served on a different platter.

[Whiterabbit]

fair and balanced. well written article that evenly presents both sides without bias or any attempt to form an opinion in the mind of readers.

OK, so where's the sarcasm button on the forums here?

[ksriverrat]

It is hard for me to read stuff like this. While I have not read any studies. I find it difficult to believe other animals are eating that much lead from others that have been shot.

While some I am sure believe this whole heartedly the likley hood their is more behind it {GunGrabbers} does seem plausible.

[Stephen Cohen]

I would never have thought, after eating a deer or moose that an eagle would still be hungry enough to eat the bullet. Lead like other metals can be ingested from natural formations as well, and probably more likely.

[nicholst55]

I would never have thought, after eating a deer or moose that an eagle would still be hungry enough to eat the bullet. Lead like other metals can be ingested from natural formations as well, and probably more likely.

Agreed, but then you're trying to use logic here. The gun grabbers rely on emotion as their sole weapon.

[GRUMPA]

Things like this almost make me PUKE. I don't know about the rest of the world but I for 1 don't believe it for an instant. I've had more raptors growing up than most kids had pets, when I was feeding them they all do the same thing and tear off a piece and when they do there tongue always tastes it before they swallow.

After reading that so-called story it's riddled with emotion and absolutely no hard evidential fact, but preying on the emotion and or sympathy of the reader to me is totally asinine.

Let's face it, anybody with a 6th grade education can write a story, but it takes a person with darn near a Phd in something to prove it.

OK rant off for now.

[starbits]

Seems to me that an eagle that was so debilitated from lead poisoning it could hardly walk or fly would more likely be dead in three weeks instead of being fit to be released back into the wild.

I believe it got sick from eating liberals and pretended to be well to escape another one.

Starbits

[Whiterabbit]

It is hard for me to read stuff like this. While I have not read any studies. I find it difficult to believe other animals are eating that much lead from others that have been shot.

http://www.huntingwithnonlead.org/

This website is run by a real conservationist, and a good guy. Not a gun grabbing "preservationist" (name one successful preservation project, I challenge you.)

You can skip the video section of PETA style videos depicting lead poisoned bald eagles with the shakes and dying. I'm guessing it's there as an appeal to emotion, but I expect that stuff from PETA, not real scientists. But the rest of the website is more than reasonable.

That being said (as a non-lead hunter) I DO think the policy should be positive reinforcement of using non-lead or encouraging its use. NOT punishing its exclusive use or legislating bans. Just because I do all of my hunting now with non lead doesn't mean I don't want to go out just once or twice with a nice fat 45 cal lead bullet going nice and slow to try to harvest a large tasty animal! :) OR God forbid I ever tell YOU what YOU should be hunting with. May as well register democrat at that point.

---------------------

It's too bad the gun-grabber folks latched on to this crusade. Frankly, they probably do more to harm the conservationists (you know, the real scientists) movement than they are "helping".

[runfiverun]

maybe we should stop shooting gut piles.
i mean you know they are there and really tempting but seriously just shoot trees or sumthin.
we have a lot of eagles around here at times but i cannot recall anytime that i have seen any of them sit around the gun range waiting for tasty lead nuggets.
they are usually sitting on top of some roadkill somewhere, maybe the deer ar catching a ww from being runned over.

[Whiterabbit]

Well, I think the argument is the fragments can travel in the animal, including in gut piles. And that the lead level for bird hazard levels is low due to low animal mass and ultra high metabolism.

Just playing a little devils advocate, trying to be more fair than the obvious negative bias of the OP's linked post (and basically every other media report involving non lead.)

Don't get me wrong though, I really wish I could go black bear hunting here with a nice fat, heavy, lead cast bullet. Sad that in CA the demands of the majority trump the minority, every time.

[bohica2xo]

It's too bad the gun-grabber folks latched on to this crusade.


And that right there is the problem. It is a "Crusade", and any crusade is simply an effort to subjugate or control someone else.

This was never a problem while we had lead in paint and gasoline. The eco-mafia has latched on to "lead" as an easy way to get what they want.

Is lead bad? Sure. Personally I never saw a single pellet of shot in a bird crop that did not enter directly from a shotgun. It has always been a habit to sort the crop to see where migratory birds are eating - in an effort to find a better hunting spot.

But we can no longer hunt geese with lead. I guess they come back to Tule Lake with scuba gear to eat pellets off of the bottom after hunting season.

California is long lost. They will ban shooting & hunting any way they can. The whole Condor thing is laughable. They have been trying to save that bird for 50 years.

Any shooter that thinks giving up lead will get the gun haters off their back is delusional.

B.

[PanaDP]

Perhaps the answer to keep both sides happy is to require that, if you shoot an animal, you must reclaim as much of the lead as you can rather than leave it in any remains. It wouldn't be particularly difficult. In fact, most deer I've ever shot were through and throughs and there wasn't any significant portion of lead still in the body at all.

[Jammer Six]

Fear coupled with no knowledge.

There has been quite a bit of credible research done, and what I hear here is not scientific, it is simply scared. As long as you ridicule the problem before you understand it, you're doomed to lose any contest over it.

This isn't launched by antis, and actually has very little to do with guns. This issue (these issues) is (are) vulnerable, and at this point could be easily defeated both scientifically and politically, but you would need to understand the issue to see it.

You guys surprise me sometimes. I don't know why, I should be used to it by now.

[runfiverun]

if animals got lead poisoning from gut piles there wouldn't be any scavengers left.
some millions of buffalo were shot with lead boolits.
the gut piles were eaten this would have lead to mass extinction long ago.

[Pressman]

I ran the numbers on their claim of 3000 tons of lead shot left in teh field a year - and guess what, they are lying. 3000 tons of lead makes a bit over 247,000,000 180 grain boolits.
No way! They are appealing to emotion and lying about the true cost just to get the uninformed on their side. They know full well no one in teh media will ever fact check anything they say. It is all BS and with a compliant media everything is on their side.

Ken

[bohica2xo]

Fear coupled with no knowledge.

There has been quite a bit of credible research done, and what I hear here is not scientific, it is simply scared. As long as you ridicule the problem before you understand it, you're doomed to lose any contest over it.

This isn't launched by antis, and actually has very little to do with guns. This issue (these issues) is (are) vulnerable, and at this point could be easily defeated both scientifically and politically, but you would need to understand the issue to see it.

You guys surprise me sometimes. I don't know why, I should be used to it by now.


So post up the unbiased, credible research.

Something that was not paid for & managed by Cleveland Amory, or one of the other liberal organizations.

Put up or shut up.

B.

[Jammer Six]

My point isn't whether the science is correct or not.

My point is that you can't fight science, whether accurate or not, with fear and arm waving. Arithmetic won't do it.

As long as they have science, pseudo-science, biased science (any result arrived at by the scientific method) and we have fear, ignorance and high volume screaming, they will win.

So the choice before us is to become informed or lose.

[Lizard333]

What I want to know is how do the ducks and geese get to the BOTTOM of lakes and ponds to eat lead shot? Surely there has to easier things to eat! That ban in the 90's was total ****.

There have been studies that show that families that have been eating game shot with lead bullets show no more lead than the city dweller. These are people that any protein they eat has never been brought from a grocery store.

Sounds like some the morons from California have leaked past their border!

[fixit]

My point isn't whether the science is correct or not.

My point is that you can't fight science, whether accurate or not, with fear and arm waving. Arithmetic won't do it.

As long as they have science, pseudo-science, biased science (any result arrived at by the scientific method) and we have fear, ignorance and high volume screaming, they will win.

So the choice before us is to become informed or lose.

i must make a comment on your reference to the 'scientific method'. i am one who absolutely believes in the scientific process, but it has been corrupted by the insertion of funding from groups that want a desired outcome! in it's pure form, the scientific process looks at the evidence, and then comes up with a theory. in it's corrupted form, the 'scientist' starts with a theory, and then looks for evidence to support it. many times there are large amounts of data that are excluded and ignored because they (the facts) would not support the desired outcome!

[Jammer Six]

in it's corrupted form, the 'scientist' starts with a theory, and then looks for evidence to support it. many times there are large amounts of data that are excluded and ignored because they (the facts) would not support the desired outcome!

Using your logic, all of us would automatically be unable to fund science to find out the truth about lead, because such science would automatically be trash, since we paid for it, and we, obviously, have an agenda. That is absolutely not the case, and is false on its face.

There are places that do good science. There are even places that pay for good science.

Ad Hominem makes you sound like a gun nut, and the higher the volume, the more points on the nut. When the wrench slips, policy makers just say "gun nut" and move on.

Talking science to a scientist might just make your point. Assuming there really is a point in all the noise, and assuming you want to continue to shoot lead legally. That, of course, would take significantly more education and effort than an unpunctuated post to an internet gun board.

I have yet to hear a shooter refute any of the anti-lead claims with legitimate research or any type of science. In fact, I have yet to see a post by a shooter that indicates they have done any research on the topic at all. All I've heard is fear, knee-jerk reaction and the gentle fluttering of hands. So far, when and if policy makers start to listen, they have us beat, hands down.

[fixit]

i don't deny what you say, just that it's, a good idea to look at the stream of funding to find what's behind the study

[canyon-ghost]

On the other is a dogged but weary wildlife protection movement that is pressing the Environmental Protection Agency to take steps to regulate the use of lead ammunition in order to protect birds and humans against lead poisoning.



Aww, them poor eco-terrorists are plumb wore out, lol. On the serious side, the EPA legislates change without a vote. They need to find a new job.

[Jammer Six]

The EPA's administration is under the current administration. In this way, all change they create is subject to votes. Sleeping dog.

[Jammer Six]

Fixit, I know several professional scientists. In fact, I married one. A genuine, ACLU card-carrying, far left, ivory tower intellectual barking moon-bat PhD. (She wrote her own characterization, just for this post.) She works at the U of W, as a Senior Scientist. That's actually a job title there, and a rate of pay. Occasionally, she moonlights as an epidemiologist, but only if you're doing something she's interested in, something she's uniquely qualified to write or you're paying enough to buy a small house. And if you're in England, Sweden or Norway, you have to include lodging, because living close enough to most of their universities for anything over a month is impossibly expensive.

On talking to her, one of the problems here is the same problem you have with hookers-- without money, we ain't gettin' any. And PhD.s cost a lot more than most street-walkers. If I banded together with her, we still couldn't afford her.

According to her, any legitimate, peer-reviewed research into lead issues would start with a grant. She loves to shoot, but she's not a shooter, and is not familiar with lead projectile research. Once the grant is approved, particularly if it goes through an agency like the National Institutes of Health, (the NIH) the funding source by and large looses control over the money.

For exactly the reason you're talking about. Bill Gates does not have control over either the methods or any of the results from the science he funds. He is merely privileged to sign the check.

So with a grant writer in hand, and some qualified scientists who would be interested (all for their own reasons) in working on a project about lead poisoning, we could probably look further into the issue. If we're not going to go that route, (and we're almost certainly not) we are probably restricted to reading the results of the research of others.

She Who Rules says that assuming a grant funded, reasonably transparent research project, the legitimacy of what we'd be reading would depend directly on the professional reputation of the researcher, not the funds, not the funding agency and not necessarily the journal. She also pointed out that the definition of science is research using the scientific method, and that there is nothing in that definition about money, journals, institutes or peer review. She said that a lot of good research has been conducted that didn't use any of those things.

She said that reputation in the scientific community is everything. (This, by the way, is why John Locke's impact is virtually non-existant. He ruined his own reputation.)

In summary, we don't get to write a check and then say "this is what I want you to find." And neither does the opposition. I wouldn't, therefore, dismiss anti-lead projectile research out of hand, without investigating it. Perhaps it can be dismissed, but if it can, that won't be determined by the methods I've seen in this thread.

We would need, first, to look at the studies cited and see if they're written by a recognized expert, or if they're written by Skeeter & Booger's Excellent Research Foundation and Hot Fudge Emporium. Then, even if they're not written by a recognized expert, we would need to read them closely, and see if they make sense.

So the first step is to look for the sources of the opposition's claims.

I'd be interested in those citations, if everyone can keep the noise low enough to hear them.

Assuming legitimate research, the claims will have to be overcome on their own merits-- ad hominem won't get us anywhere, unless we're lucky enough to find that John Locke has switched sides.

[Whiterabbit]

I wouldn't, therefore, dismiss anti-lead projectile research out of hand, without investigating it. Perhaps it can be dismissed, but if it can, that won't be determined ....

Says it all, doesn't it? :)

[fixit]

i know i'm risking giving myself a bad reputation here, but i've been following the issues of gun control, wildlife protection, and the enviromental movement long enough (i'm 50) to know that along with some good science, there is cherry picked data, rewritten reports, and quasi-scientific mumbo jumbo that gets reported as science. i also have a resonable understanding of the process of statistical overview. yes, funding is necessary for science to survive, yes, reputation is vital for the survival of a scientist, however, if the common direction of 'society' is to make something more, or less acceptable, it is all too frequently possible to find someone with a bone to pick that is willing to sign their name to a study. this is why, in the case of hot topic subjects, you often will find studies all over the spectrum, from very good to very bad. i'm merely saying that one can often tell much by who is providing the funding. i highly recommend reading the reports, and checking out their methods of data collection!

[MIBULLETS]

Jammer Six,

I agree with everything you and your wife have said. I don't think the problem lies in the research it self, but what was done with it after it was done. I assume whomever paid for the research is the "owner" of the data. If that is true, you will never see the reseach, but only what they want to be seen.

[fixit]

Jammer Six,

I agree with everything you and your wife have said. I don't think the problem lies in the research it self, but what was done with it after it was done. I assume whomever paid for the research is the "owner" of the data. If that is true, you will never see the reseach, but only what they want to be seen.

well said!!!

[Jammer Six]

Actually, in a real paper, you'll see the conclusions they reached, supported by the research they did, both historical and current, including the data sets they used and a description of their methods sufficient to enable the reader to duplicate their efforts (and, in theory, their results.)

Anything short of that is Skeeter & Booger et al.

[BulletFactory]

Just exterminate the dirty buzzards and it wont be an issue.

[Moondawg]

[QUOTE=bohica2xo;1666712]And that right there is the problem. It is a "Crusade", and any crusade is simply an effort to subjugate or control someone else.

California is long lost. They will ban shooting & hunting any way they can. The whole Condor thing is laughable. They have been trying to save that bird for 50 years.

It is my understanding that Calif. is chopping up Condors and tens of thousands of other birds in the blades of windmill generators. But, that seems to be OK killing the birds so they can generate expensive green energy. Killing thousands of birds, including endangered ones is OK as long as it is for a so-called green cause. These liberals are strange people with a strange way of thinking.

[Whiterabbit]

Just exterminate the dirty buzzards and it wont be an issue.

You arent talking about birds, are you.

:p

[truckjohn]

Don't forget that we musn't confuse the EFFECT with the SOURCE....

It's true that Eagles can suffer from Lead poisioning... This is true....

But.. Where it comes from may not really be very straight forward... and it may not be interesting at all....

Heavy metal toxicity is a weird thing....

In many instances - it's easier to get OD levels from eating stuff that has a little trace amount in each bitty animal than by eating a slug of lead....

Why? You don't digest a lead slug particularly well (People live long, healthy lives with bullet slugs stuck in their body parts).. but you can digest fish that ate plants that absorbed lead out of a stream bed..... and if you eat them faster than it's naturally flushed out of your body... then you get higher and higher levels of lead in your blood.... Some plants are better at absorbing some sort of heavy metal.. and so some fish get more of it because they eat that plant - where others don't....

It's kinda along the lines warnings we read about eating certain fish - that are high in Mercury.... That fish didn't eat mercury.. It ate lots of little fish... and somewhere down the line, something ate plants... and those plants absorbed Mercury from somewhere... in microscopic quantities...

Unfortunately, that Eagle can't read the sign that says "No more than 2 such and such species of fish per month out of this body of water"...

Who knows where the lead came from.. Tailings from mining operations, old casting foundries up river, what ever..... It would take a lot of investigation to find out.. but that's where the ACTUAL science resides....

Thanks

[Whiterabbit]

well, shouldn't be to difficult to find out. Condor zone has been lead free for awhile now, why not re-study the area and try to determine if the birds are any better here?

Of course, either they'll find the birds are better and say the legislation works, better spread it across the nation, or they'll find the birds aren't better, and say there are too many hunters not complying rather than attribute causality to other sources. And suggest the legislation should spread now before other areas are affected to the extent CA is.