Lead Shot Kills Long After The Bullet Stops
| Fri Jul. 11, 2008 3:44 PM PDT
Here's another reason cameras are better in the wilderness than rifles or rods.
Millions of pounds of lead used in hunting, fishing, and shooting sports wind up lost in the great outdoors every year, reports the USGS. Except they're not really lost. Only lost to the human hunters and fishers.
They are certainly not lost to the countless individuals of numerous species who eat the spent lead shot, the wayward bullets, the lost fishing sinkers, and the snagged the tackle. They are decidedly not lost to the wildlife that eats the dead and wounded animals who were shot, or who ate the lead.
According to a new technical review by The Wildlife Society, upland hunting fields could receive as much as 400,000 shots per acre. Individual shooting ranges might receive 23 tons of lead shot and bullets yearly. All outdoor shooting ranges in the US combined could receive more than 80,000 tons of lead annually.
Meanwhile, roughly 4,382 tons of lead fishing sinkers are sold in the US every year. No one knows how much of that is lost.
The report notes: Lead is a metal with no known beneficial role in biological systems.
Continues Below
Continued From Above
"Science is replete with evidence that ingestion of spent ammunition and fishing tackle can kill birds," said Barnett Rattner, one of the report's authors. "The magnitude of poisoning in some species such as waterfowl, eagles, California condors, swans and loons, is daunting. For this reason, on July 1, 2008, the state of California put restrictions on the use of lead ammunition in parts of the range of the endangered California condor because the element poses such a threat to this endangered species."
Lead poisoning causes behavioral, physiological, and biochemical effects, and often death. The rate of mortality is high enough to affect the populations of some wildlife species. Not to mention the http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VB5-4HHH4YY-2...
" target="new">hunters who eat them. Is this why hunting is on the decline?
Environmentally safe alternatives to lead shot and sinkers exist and are available in North America and elsewhere. But use of these alternatives is not widespread, according to the report.
You know, this is where laws come in handy.
Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent, lecturer, and 2008 winner of the Kiriyama Prize and the John Burroughs Medal Award.
Comments
Submitted by Fair Trade (not verified) on Mon Jul. 14, 2008 1:38 PM PDT.
I think it's too much to expect hunters and the NRA to behave responsibly...
Andy Griffith(aka Sheriff), thinking is not what a true believer needs to bother herself with. We only have to believe in the righteousness of our cause. I bet that you are one of the those clingers that Obama talks about. We like animals. We don't want hunting. We are vegetarians and not meat eaters like the hunters that are clingers with their guns. .
I do agree with youre statistics and your concern for all the wildelife, but i do not like the fact that you put down the hunters and you should know that in canada it is elegal to hunt with lead shot. thank you for reading.
sincerely,
Bob Mcdonnel
Fair Trade and especially
Submitted by Jonathan Ragatz (not verified) on Wed Apr. 8, 2009 8:00 PM PDT.
Fair Trade and especially Green Lady: I suppose you are both so sure of your moral superiority that you refuse to acknowledge that hunting is actually kind and necessary because humans have chased away a lot of the natural predators who would otherwise keep most wildlife populations from growing too large for the local ecology to support. I live in Wisconsin, and according to our Department of Natural Resources, hunting is vital to keep the populations in check so there isn't mass starvation during the winter. I suppose you think that is somehow more humane than hunting just because there isn't a gun or bow involved. And yes, I also do my deer hunting in one of the Chronic Wasting Disease zones where the DNR is trying to limit the spread of the disease by cutting down on the population. Just like in so many other areas you are so sure you are right that you don't bother to actually check the facts. Call me a clinger if it makes you feel better, but I bother to check facts before I open my mouth.
