Curmudgeon

Mr VJP - Our experience with 30-06, .270 and 7mm-08 are the same as yours.

BTW - One of my hunting buddies says there is a good supply of copper at Gander Mtn in Binghamton. Herb Phillipson's in New Hartford had several calibers when I was there last. And, my brother found some at Bass Pro in Utica.

The "useful idiot" checking in again after getting caught up in the complications of life for a few days. A draft of a scientific paper in my possession lists eastern scavengers at >240 winter camera trap sites baited with carcasses in the Appalachians from ME to AL from 2008-2012. When over 2,000,000 photographs were examined, the scavengers showed up in this order of frequency (I am only including those who were present on 10% of days or more): Crow, Raven, Red-tailed Hawk, Golden Eagle, Coyote, Raccoon, Bald Eagle, Bobcat, Opossum, Turkey Vulture, Red Fox, Gray Fox. You would remove Raccoon, Opossum and Turkey Vulture from a list for New York with a 10% threshold. In this group, raptors are the most sensitive to lead, and in NYS make up half of the top 6 species scavenging on carcasses in the winter. I regularly talk to 2 researchers that test the blood lead levels of wild Golden Eagles. In a study that is still a draft, of 190 western Golden Eagles, 58% had lead levels above 10 µg/dL. Of 49 eastern Golden Eagles, 61% had lead levels above 10 µg/dL. So the majority of Golden Eagles have been exposed to lead in amounts that would give a pediatrician, or someone who cares about wildlife pause. Most of you have probably never seen a Golden Eagle in the east. However, most of you have seen Bald Eagles which are now almost common. Common enough that they are showing up more often at rehabilitators and the DEC pathology lab with lead poisoning. the only significant source of lead in late fall and early winter is from deer carcasses. The eastern birds were all trapped in winter. The western birds in the fall during hunting season. The Bald Eagles may be getting some lead from woodchucks - since they are here in the warm months. Everyone should be using copper bullets and slugs for hunting. This conversation did not start about a ban. It is about doing what is good for you and wildlife. If someone cares about their health, their childrens' and grandchildrens' health, and wildlife, they are a "useful idiot." I remain usefully yours, The Curmudgeon

Thanks. I will continue to urge everyone I can to use copper in the field and only allow it on my property. I do have better understanding now.

Out of frustration, I am repeating the question: How does switching to copper because it is the right thing to do makes a ban more likely?

In CA too. The turbines were having even a greater impact on bats until they all died from white-nose disease. On Altamont Pass in CA from a CA environmental group: "The APWRA was established in 1982 and contains 5,400 wind turbines. The APWRA has the highest numbers and rates of raptor kills of any wind facility in the world. The bird kill fiasco at Altamont Pass is a result of poor planning that allowed wind turbines to be built along a major raptor migration corridor in an area with high wintering concentrations of raptors and in the heart of the highest concentration of golden eagles in North America. Wind turbines at Altamont Pass kill an estimated 880 to 1,300 birds of prey each year, including up to 116 golden eagles, 300 red-tailed hawks, 380 burrowing owls, and additional hundreds of other raptors including kestrels, falcons, vultures, and other owl species. The APWRA is an ecological sink for golden eagles and other raptor species and may be having significant impacts on populations of birds that are rare and reproduce infrequently."

"Besides, Condors and raptors of all sorts are getting killed by windmills, and I see no desire by greenies to put a stop to those things. Do they really care about the birds, or only ones killed by lead?" Mr. VJP - You are so very wrong. There are many "greenies" opposed to wind in the wrong places. The FWS wants to issue 30 year "take" permits at wind farms for eagles - http://eaglescoping.org/. Do some poking around on the internet and see how the "greenies" are reacting. I have personally been involved in the SEQRA process for at least 5 NY wind projects. One was recently abandoned by the developer when myself and others demonstrated serious flaws in their avian assessment.

I am not a purist. I use lead in the .22 for woodchucks around the garden. The lead-free .22 stuff I bought from Cabelas has terrible accuracy. I use it for slaughtering only. I do bury the woodchucks to keep them from the vultures. I like vultures too. In fact, I changed my photo from an eagle feeding on a deer to one of me holding a wild vulture. I've been puzzling over the resistance to copper. Maybe you can help me understand. Here's what I know: Copper has better terminal performance. i know this first hand. See the post above or ask why Ted Nugent uses it. Copper reduces the lead in our food supply. This is especially important for young children. Copper reduces lead poisoning of raptors, vultures, ravens and other scavengers. Copper costs more than cheap lead. It costs about the same as premium lead. Increased cost is minimal as long as hunters only use it in the field. The cost/benefit equation for copper used for hunting deer is very good. The cost/benefit for target practice is very bad. Now, imagine a worst case scenario: The courts give the EPA control over the use of lead in ammo. Hillary is elected in 1016 and immediately tells the EPA to ban lead. All the ammo you now own is illegal. Tell me how admitting that copper is a better choice now influences that possible outcome. Tell me how switching because it is the right thing to do makes a ban more likely. I could make the argument that if most hunters switched, the risks to people and wildlife would be much smaller. If everyone voluntarily used copper for hunting, the lower risks would take away the case for a ban.

My post late yesterday was inadvertently sent out before I was finished. I wanted to address the copper toxicity issue. As Vly suggests, shoot some lead and copper into water jugs and weigh them afterward. I haven't done it but those who have find the copper retains 99-100% of its mass. If lead did the same thing, the problem would not exist for people, and be greatly minimized for scavengers. adkbuck - What do you mean by "getting sick"? It is well documented that children suffer IQ deficits and numerous other problems from microscopic amounts of lead. That's why NY contractors need to go through a lot of hassles to renovate old houses. My nephew had high blood lead when he was young. They had to do a lot of things in their house to cover and remove lead paint from his room and the dirt around the house. These efforts are not for nothing. Would you consider a loss of 5 IQ points "getting sick"? I've been talking to a pediatrician. She has a patient with high lead levels. They have ruled out everything she could think of but the blood lead stays high. After talking to me, she is going to ask about his diet. Being from an urban area, it never occurred to her the kid might be eating it at the dinner table. Vly mentioned that the CDC reduced the lead level threshold from 10 to 5 micrograms/deciliter. We are talking unbelievably small amounts of lead in the blood. Having done some writing on this subject, I have been forced at times to convert parts per million to μg/dL. 5 μg/dL is .05 ppm. In other words, 5% of 1 ppm. If you doubt me, here's the conversion site I used - http://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_10_micrograms_per_deciliter_of_lead_equal_in_ppm

Doc - You aren't cherry picking. You are wrong. I just went to the CBC site itself - Study title and conclusions copied and pasted. So much for destroying any ideas. Hunting with lead: association between blood lead levels and wild game consumption. CONCLUSIONS: Participants who consumed wild game had higher PbB than those who did not consume wild game. Careful review of butchering practices and monitoring of meat-packing processes may decrease lead exposure from wild game consumption. To jjb4900 - You are correct about birds and grit. However, adult humans are much more tolerant of lead than children. That doesn't mean there are "no ill effects". Re: Unrecovered deer. I generally find at least one deer each year that someone did not recover. Considering some of my neighbors seem to fire 5 times at every deer they see means there may be many more unrecovered deer in my area than yours.

It seems to be there are 2 different discussions going on. One is about bans and restrictions. The other is about protecting kids and scavengers. Can we oppose bans and oppose poisons in the food chain too?

Who is pushing for a ban on lead in New York? Given the backlash to the SAFE Act, the reality is, there will be no ban. I am plugged into a lot of different groups. I hear no talk of a ban. I did hear DEC is working to amend the act to allow internet purchases of ammo. This came from a personal discussion with DEC staff on improving the availability of lead-free ammo. There is no doubt that lead is a powerful neurotoxin. Fortunately for the readers of this group, tiny amounts do not have a profound effect on adults. The same amounts have severe impacts on the brains of children under 6. Regarding whether or not our ancestors "were a bunch of drooling idiots who could barely string words together": I thought moderators were supposed to be more moderate. However, taking the topic seriously, the velocity issue is significant, as is the amount of game available. There was no deer hunting in my part of central NY (4F) in the early 20th century. There were hardly any deer. I wasn't around then but I recall the old timers talking about going for a ride in the 1930s to see a deer. They were that rare. There were deer here when black powder and muzzle loaders were in use and velocities were slow. We could actually determine how chronically exposed to lead our ancestors were. Lead as the gentleman said, mimics calcium. It becomes part of bone. We could exhume our ancestors and measure their lead exposure over their lifetime. This wouldn't tell us how they consumed it. Water and paint are more likely sources. This type of research has already being done on Balck Vultures. Vultures - including condors - are obligate scavengers. They do not obtain lead from water pipes or paint, only from dead animals. I am going to make an assumption (please forgive me) that the average intelligence of this group is higher than average. Everyone is computer savvy. Everyone is literate. Some of you are articulate, even eloquent. That is not random. We inherited that intelligence from our ancestors who were very smart. Suppose that the average IQ of this group is 120. Suppose we all fed our young children lead-tainted venison (as I did). We may have dropped our kid's IQ 5-10 points. Maybe the same thing happened to us. That doesn't make our kids or us "drooling idiots". In fact, all are still well above average. Now tell me, if you knew that feeding venison containing lead fragments was going to impact your children negatively, would you spend $4 more per year on copper ammo? That's what it costs me. I don't use it at the range. I put 2 rounds of copper through the rifle before the season. Then one round per deer. I spend more on gas for the UTV getting my Dad in and out of the woods than the $4 the copper costs me. Does anyone doubt there is lead in venison? Is there anyone out there willing to X-ray random samples of meat from the NYS Venison Donation Program? They won't return my calls or emails. Why is that? Do you know what happened with ND's VDP? They took 100 random packages and X-rayed them. 59 had metal fragments. Some of it was probably from copper jackets but most was lead. Back to scavengers. I love wildlife - everything from insects on up. I started using lead-free ammo because I was seeing eagles around my property every deer season. Twice I had to drag carcasses away from the road to protect eagles from being hit by cars - multiple eagles each time. To deny that these birds are getting lead from gut piles and unrecovered carcasses is just wishful thinking. Researcher Grainger Hunt and others X-rayed 38 deer carcasses and 20 gut piles from animals killed with lead bullets. 94% of the carcasses contained metal fragments. 90% of the gut piles had fragments: half had more than 100 fragments; a quarter had more than 200 fragments. The next time you have a road-kill nearby, drag it off the road and put a wildlife camera on it. See what feeds.

I just joined this forum because someone sent me the link to this discussion. I have been using monolithic bullets - mostly Barnes TSX - for over a decade. Performance is excellent. Accuracy is excellent. My family has killed over 30 deer with them. Referring to something as "good science" is a just way to raise doubts about other science. Having read scores of papers on lead ammo, lead levels in scavengers, lead effects on people, lead in meat in venison donation programs, etc, etc. etc., we should not be discussing "good science" but "peer reviewed science". I've been to the NRA's site on lead ammo. It's bunk. I raised my kids on venison killed with lead. They survived, even thrived. Possibly they had a drop of a few IQ points. My sister says they are closer to normal because of it. Now, I don't let anyone hunt with lead bullets on my property.My grandkids only eat venison killed with copper or gilding metal bullets. Lead is toxic. It fragments - sometimes into hundreds of pieces. Do a web search. Find the images. Look at Xrays of carcasses and gut piles. Scavengers eat those gut piles, lead and all, including eagles and condors. Copper remains intact. Get some ballistic gelatin and try it. As far as the toxicity of lead, a Bald Eagle in PA recently died from lead poisoning with a single air rifle pellet in its gut. It need not be mulitple tiny fragments. I have done the research. I am confident that lead affects scavengers and children. If this makes me a "lefty" a "greenie" I guess I will have to live with that. I've been called worse.