vlywaterman
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Posts posted by vlywaterman
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I've not heard of hunters getting lead poison from eating wild game shot with lead bullets. Maybe it has happened, but I haven't heard of those incidents.
- The lead levels of sample populations which eat wild game is generally about the same as the US population as a whole, if not slightly lower.
where did this come from? Did you read the posts?And while there is some evidence to suggest that raptors and certain birds are more affected by the lead in game carcass, are any of those populations shrinking or under threat because of lead bullets?some evidence? and are we only concerned about poisoning these birds if it causes a shrinking population?Again referring to the Condor discussion in CA, that state's wildlife officials acknowledged (after the lead ban went into effect) there were other sources of contamination that were affecting that bird.the lead ban still has not gone completely into affect(2019), where else did they get the lead?Yes, there are other places, countries, that environmentally do horrific things, and this lead issue may seem trivial, but it is something you and I can do something about. I personally can't do anything about the raw sewage dumped into Rio's harbor, or Japan's slaughtering dolphins for pet food, or the Chinese dog meat festival, but I am trying to do my part here to stop the needless suffering of eagles and limit the possibilities of lead poisoning in children. -
That is a good point. I believe(just thinking) that a pellet or two would pass much easier than these tiny particle the size of pepper flakes or smaller, and the surface area of these tiny prattles would seem much greater as well in terms of your acids breaking them down so they can be absorbed into the blood stream. For most birds, that do have gizzards, there is a double problem, not only are they getting some lead from the possible food they eat, but for many birds like doves, the pellets they eat are what they think are the perfect size gravel for their gizzards so they sit in there being ground up. Some birds(even of the same species) are more tolerant, and some, even eagles seem to be able to regurgitate the contaminated stuff. Look at the study where they were intentionally poisoning eagles with lead. A wide range. http://huntingwithnonlead.org/PDFs_Main/Bald%20eagle%20lead%20dosing%20study.pdf
And as was mentioned and referenced earlier, people ,,, and pigs who ate game meat had higher blood lead levels than those that did not.
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http://www.cabelas.com/product/Remington-Premier-Copper-Solid-Sabot-Slugs/705574.uts
I don't believe this video, I have used these slugs and shot them in water, always expanded beautifully,but I'm putting it out there to be honest and not cherry pick. But, read the comments after the video,,, and the last box of these I bought was $12 in Margaretville at Del Sports.
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good point, yes, the ammo giveaways seem to be what works best, I think they used that in AZ and maybe near the Tetons, where the NPS offered exchanges for ammo.
Maybe we should also focus on going to ranges and providing ammo to try, it sells itself when hunters shoot the rounds, they are always amazed at how much mass those copper jacketed rounds lose when shooting into water, and how the copper rounds retain almost all the mass while penetrating almost twice as far.
We did talk about the idea of using coupons to get hunters to try copper.
I do disagree that education won't work though. In the end, hunters will switch because they believe it is the best choice. Legislation is not the answer, I agree, and as most hunters know, we abide by rules and regulations not for fear of getting caught, but because we believe they are the practices that will preserve our environment and heritage as conservationists.
If we can get hunters to just try these rounds, they will see they group better, kill better, and that this isn't the slippery slope to take away our guns or cause undo financial hardship on hunters.
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When I taught Earth Science I would always tell my students that there is still a "Flat Earth Society", and just came across this: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jun/28/why-bad-ideas-refuse-die It is a very long read, but is quite compelling as to why we are even having this discussion of which I am grateful for the opportunity to have and wish more people would be reading.
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or use non-lead ammunition and not worry about this at all. Or use lead, and not worry about this at all.
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Absolutely true Doc, I haven't heard of any hunters hunters dropping dead of lead consumption either, well except for a few unfortunate people who got pellets caught in their appendix, but when was the last time you heard of anyone dying of lead poisoning period? Even in Flint, how many people got sick? Look at the symptoms of lead poisoning(again). Most birds don't die of lead, they have high lead levels and they starve or crash.
There is no known safe BLL. Exposure to lead can seriously harm a child’s health. Millions of children are being exposed to lead in their homes, increasing their risks for
- damage to the brain and nervous system,
- slowed growth and development,
- learning and behavior problems (e.g., reduced IQ, ADHD, juvenile delinquency, and criminal behavior), and
- hearing and speech problems.
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yes, there are lots of papers about this from other countries, like this recent one:
and on the other side of the pond, it is also science vs non-science:
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based on the CDC study this is what ND came up with, and it really wouldn't matter whether Cornatzer was a doctor or garbage man would it? he didn't do the study.
https://www.ndhealth.gov/lead/venison/
Based on the results of the CDC blood lead level study and a Minnesota bullet study, the North Dakota Department of Health has developed the following recommendations to minimize the risk of harm to people who are most vulnerable to the effects of lead:
- Pregnant women and children younger than 6 should not eat any venison harvested with lead bullets.
- Older children and other adults should take steps to minimize their potential exposure to lead, and use their judgment about consuming game that was taken using lead-based ammunition.
- The most certain way of avoiding lead bullet fragments in wild game is to hunt with non-lead bullets.
- Hunters and processors should follow the processing recommendations developed by the North Dakota Department of Agriculture.
And from the CDC recently as they reduced the level that they recommend intervention at.
https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/acclpp/blood_lead_levels.htm
Protecting children from exposure to lead is important to lifelong good health. No safe blood lead level in children has been identified. Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to affect IQ, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement. And effects of lead exposure cannot be corrected.
Reference Level
- Experts now use a reference level of 5 micrograms per deciliter to identify children with blood lead levels that are much higher than most children’s levels. This new level is based on the U.S. population of children ages 1-5 years who are in the highest 2.5% of children when tested for lead in their blood.
most people don't get sick from eating lead, the lead mimics calcium, and so it is deposited in bones and muscle tissue especially in youngsters, and it screws up your nervous system which includes the brain.
Even when chelation is done, and lead levels are brought down,,, it is permanent damage,,,
also from the CDC
https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/data/
There is no known safe BLL. Exposure to lead can seriously harm a child’s health. Millions of children are being exposed to lead in their homes, increasing their risks for
- damage to the brain and nervous system,
- slowed growth and development,
- learning and behavior problems (e.g., reduced IQ, ADHD, juvenile delinquency, and criminal behavior), and
- hearing and speech problems.
I rest my case.
If you want to risk feeding lead to your family, that is your choice, no they probably wont die from it , or even get sick from it, but, can you just dismiss all that is in red above from the CDC?
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I think I'm getting a bit worn out here. I put up scientific studies, but I am not sure anyone reads them. Where are the facts or studies that claim there is no harm in using lead ammunition for hunting? Someone wanted a study where they tested people eating game meat,,, but it had to be a new study,,,, so I put up the one form Greenland,,, or did it have to be from the US? I keep hearing about the CDC study and how the folks who ate game meat still had a lower blood level than the national average. Didn't anyone hear my point that it was still 50% higher than those that did not eat game meat? Didn't anyone read that the CDC also said there is no safe level of lead and no level for kids that has no negative effects?
And about the ban and what it might do to our economy, hunting, or ability to get ammo. The ban in CA is being phased in over a many years, the complete ban(again only for hunting), will begin in 2019,,,,,,,, don't you think that 4 years might give hunters and ammo manufacturers some time to get this figured out?
If I can't present enough evidence for someone to switch, then I think I'm not doing a good job, and I will work on that, and do accept that. But, one must at least look at the evidence that is presented, so we can have an intelligent discussion on the merits of the studies.
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"Have you given any consideration to what a lead ammo ban, on the national level, might do to all ammo production, producers, costs, employees of ammo makers, military defense supplies, gun control,"
Mr. Rattler,
even in CA where the complete ban will go into effect in 2019(I think), it is just for hunting. Do you think people in CA will stop shooting? There may be new businesses formed, making or distributing copper,,, such as Pierce Ammunition right here in NY. They were laying people off because they had too much in stock. If you looked at one of my previous posts, the military is switching, for environmental reasons and because it shoots better. "gun control",,I don't know, there will always be and always have been people opposed to hunting, but hunters have often been the conservationists, ones who knew the most about the wildlife, spent the most time in the wild, and would have the most at stake for protecting the environment. Showing our commitment to protecting some icon like the bald eagle would only seem to publicly promote our cause.
About only talking to hunters about this. I will talk to whoever will listen, as far as I can determine the science is there, if one will objectively look at it.
I have another pet peeve that I am trying to use to get my point across. In NYS hunters donate almost 80,000lbs of venison each year to the venison donation program. It goes to food pantries across the state as ground meat. It is a great program. But there are no warnings on the packages that it may contain lead. If I were to donate beef to the program it would need to pass certain tests and standards. Because it is game meat, it does not. PA does almost 100,000 lbs, I asked the coordinator if the meat was ever tested,,,, " why should we, we have never had a problem". I think not just hunters, but everyone should know this, particularly people who get this ground meat from the program. NH doesn't have donation program, but confiscated deer are donated to people in need. I asked if they were concerned with lead in the meat, "listen, they are getting this for nothing, I don't think they are concerned about lead". Some states at least put warnings on the packages.
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I'd agree completely, shot placement is important. But, as I said before a shot into the chest could make the front quarters vulnerable as well as the inner tenderloins. A neck or head shot is safer if you are tossing that. But if you are concerned with scavengers, where do you toss it?
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Just one more thing, if you can take the 15 minutes to watch it, it covers much of the stuff we have been talking about the last few days, but does it with pictures and videos.
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this shows and x-ray so you can see where those fragments end up.
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wow, a lot had been talked about since I was last on here.
I just looked and did find another study where they did look at blood lead levels in humans and compared it to the game meat that was consumed.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247612/
"Participants reporting less than weekly intake of sea birds had blood lead concentrations of approximately 75 μg/L, whereas those who reported eating sea birds several times a week had concentrations of approximately 110 μg/L, and those who reported daily intake had concentrations of 170 μg/L (p = 0.01)." That is /L so 7.5,11, and 17.
And don't forget the CDC study in ND, the people who consumed game meat had a 50% higher blood lead level than those that did not.
Someone noted that they shot deer in the heart and lungs, if you look at the research, some of these particles are traveling over a foot from the bullet channel, so your inner tenderloin, and shoulders may have lead particles in them. And don't forget, what do you do with the guts and organs? leave them for scavengers?
This is from the pig study, if you think you may not have any lead in your venison.
Wound radiographs of all 30 eviscerated deer showed metal fragments (median = 136 fragments, range = 15–409) and offered a measure of fragment dispersion, albeit two-dimensional. Extreme distance between fragment clusters in standard radiographs averaged 24 cm (range±SD = 5–43±9 cm), and maximum single fragment separation was 45 cm. Radiography revealed visible metal fragments in the ground meat of 24 (80%) of the 30 deer. At least one fragment was visible in radiographs of 74 (32%) of 234 packages of ground meat; 160 (68%) revealed no fragments, 46 (20%) had one, 16 (7%) had two, and 12 (5%) showed 3–8 fragments. An average of 32% of ground meat packages (N = 3–15 packages, mean 7.
per deer showed metal fragments (range = 0–100% of packages). The ground meat derived from one deer showed more fragments (N = 42) than counted in the radiograph of the carcass (N = 31), and two ground meat packages (2 deer) each contained a single shotgun pellet which had not been detected on the carcass radiographs. No relationship was apparent between the number of metal fragments counted in carcasses and those subsequently counted in ground meat from the same individual (correlation coefficient 0.06). In the aggregate, we observed 155 metal particles in the ground meat packages, 3.1% of the 5074 we counted in the carcasses. Of 16 deer carcasses with metal fragments near the spine, four (25% of selected deer, 8% of 49 packages) showed fragments in processed loin steaks (1–9 fragments). Additional fragments may have occurred in 220 unscanned packages of steaks derived from all animalsAs far as the price for non-lead bullets, it does suck that we can't have this stuff shipped in NY, but I have found most modern rounds locally in Margaretville. It's about twice as much as cheap lead bullets, but almost the same if you are looking at quality lead rounds.
I'm not trying to tell anyone what to use, I myself feel foolish that up until a few years ago, I had no idea about this issue. And it all came about upon finding an immature bald eagle that subsequently died of lead poisoning, and loosing a golden eagle we had just put a transmitter on in the same location. A spot where the DEC and USDA had come in to exterminate pigs that had escaped from a canned hunting facility near Hancock. The farmer was supposed to bury the carcasses, but left them in a field where these eagles fed on them.
I feel like I am trying to put information out there that people can read that is not someones opinion, but rather scientific papers or based on papers. And I think if one looks honestly at the information, even if one isn't quite sure,, why risk feeding lead to your family.
And, having shot both, the copper groups better, kills better, and, I don't worry about any lead contamination.
check this out if you wonder about copper's effectiveness: http://blog.cheaperthandirt.com/tortured-path-armys-m855a1-ar-15/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=social&utm_content=122615chronicle&utm_campaign=CH122615-torturedpatharmysm855a1ar15
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I have a long day tomorrow, but before I quit tonight I wanted to resend the link to the pig study and send on just one part from the abstract.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0005330
Mean blood lead concentrations in pigs peaked at 2.29 µg/dL (maximum 3.8 µg/dL) 2 days following ingestion of fragment-containing venison, significantly higher than the 0.63 µg/dL averaged by controls
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As you have brought up the CDC a number of times, is this an agency that you would believe?
If so, read this.
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/pha/LeadFragmentsinVenison/Venison%20and%20Lead%20HC%20110408.pdf
In it is this calculation:
At the mean lead concentration found in pantry samples, the model predicts that consuming venison with 6.2 mg/kg lead every 15 days will result in 80 % of children less that 7 years old having blood lead greater than 10 μg/dL level of concern. If the ingestion frequency is reduced to once every 30 days, the predicted percentage of children with blood lead >10 μg/dL is 50%.
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I'm not ranting, did you read the CDC study? did you see that those that consumed game meat had higher lead levels than those that did not?
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http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2014/aug/wingedwarnings10metalmadness
Even when lead doesn't kill these birds, it makes them incapable of surviving in the wild.
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Padre, that is a good point about the lead levels in the ND CDC study, and I couldn't agree with you more that there are more significant avenues for lead to get into our bodies. I looked at the study and thought the people were fortunate to have low blood levels, but I also saw that the people who consumed game meat had a higher level than those that did not. If there is no safe level, why add lead to our diet, and even if we are below the national average, why increase our lead levels at all?
Did you read the study with the venison from the food pantries that was fed to the pigs? I was curious why the blood lead levels stopped increasing after 4 days(I think), even though the study went for 9 days or so.
Can you find me any scientific links that suggest that lead does not affect our wildlife?
This is a short simple read from the NPS with some pretty sad facts about lead poisoning and bald eagles in the midwest. https://www.fws.gov/midwest/InsideR3/March14Story14.htm
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There is a great piece written by Carroll Henderson, http://soarraptors.org/2016/03/op-ed-piece-from-carroll-henderson/
He is the gentleman that is probably the most responsible for banning lead for hunting waterfowl. He is also the gentleman that worked with folks from our DEC to bring back Bald eagles into NYS. The eagle that was killed in western NY, just over a year ago, was one he had caught, and sent back to us 38 years ago as a nestling. http://www.dec.ny.gov/press/102089.html
If you are old enough, you probably remember there were no eagles to be seen here in the 70's, mostly due to DDT, which for many years we thought was fine to use.
Anyway, it is a well written piece to read.
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Where do you find information that there is no factual numbers on wildlife affected by lead in ammunition? I am really curious on where you get that information, I would like to read it. If you search for lead poisoning in wildlife I think you find quite a bit of factual scientific papers that suggest this is true. Do you believe that banning lead for hunting waterfowl was just about anti hunting, and it was not based on science? What information, or from whom would would be something that you would accept? I have shown some links to scientific studies, did you read any of them?
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Please don’t feel like anything I say is in anyway condescending, I am very happy to be able to have this conversation.
What sort of consensus of scientists would be needed? I read this statement a while back: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6dq3h64x
I can do a Google search of lead and wildlife and come up with lots of papers about it’s negative effects.
The CDC has reduced the level for intervention from 10µg/dl to 5, but they also say there is no level known without effects on children. And when I read about the lead issues in Flint, I remember there though there were some very high blood lead levels(very few sick people though), the concern was long term problems. I came across this in one paper I was just reading,
Even low levels of lead exposure can cause irreversible brain damage in children under age 6. That damage can include a reduction in IQ, increased risk of attention deficit disorder and increased aggression and impulsivity. Studies show children with elevated lead levels are more likely as adults to be un- or underemployed, be dependent on government services and/or end up in prison.
In the same article(which is not a scientific paper), it stated:
The good news: There has been a huge drop in children's lead levels in recent decades since the United States phased out use of leaded gas and leaded paint.
In 1976, the average American child had a blood lead level of approximately 16 µg/dL — a level considered unacceptable today.
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/02/thousands_of_michigan_children.html
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I was watching a documentary with my grandson about the Grand Canyon, a good part of it was about a pair of condors that were nesting there, this would have been their first chick to survive, and either one or both of the parents were routinely trapped and tested for lead. Lead seems to be the biggest obstacle to the recovery of the species. A couple of great links here: https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/nature/condor_updates.htm
https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/nature/condor-re-introduction.htm
and this one on how a program to switch to non-lead ammo seems to be encouraging for the condors. http://grandcanyonnews.com/main.asp?SectionID=74&SubSectionID=114&ArticleID=10998
So, this is what I believe about the issue with lead in ammo. I started hunting some 50 years ago on my family farm in Delaware County. All our ammo was lead, there were no laws even for hunting waterfowl with lead. My house had shingles(for siding) made of asbestos, and the town would oil the roads once a year to keep the dust down, some of that oil probably had PCBs in it(it was cheaper),and it was perfectly legal. http://www.balch.com/files/Publication/a398308c-8127-41ee-b6bb-38fa16d76bda/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/569e4dcf-dc3c-4d54-b543-0a7fa02d93cc/PCB%20-%20THead.pdf
My point being, is that we learn from things, and what we have always done, sometimes we can’t continue to do, and shouldn’t because we know better.
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lead in ammunition
in General Hunting
Posted
Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. And that is not an easy fix.
But here is the thing, it's not like getting AIDS or cancer or the measles, you can get a lethal amount of lead or enough to make you very sick, but it is very rare. But what science is saying is that a tiny bit affects you, more will affect you more and so on and so on. I'm not doing a good job getting that point across, the CDC says there is no amount for kids that has no negative effect. There is no safe level.
So, can you get more lead from paint, yes, have lead levels in kids dropped over the last 30 years, yes,,,,,, but why add to the lead in our children if we can easily take one tiny bit away?