Lead is still killing condors, and hunters can help
By John Krist Ventura County Star
May 4, 2006
There are two ways for a lead bullet or pellet fired by a hunter to kill wildlife. The first is obvious: blood loss and major damage to internal organs caused by the impact of a speeding projectile.
The other method, however, is not so apparent. And a legislative effort to crack down on that second mechanism of mortality — one that poses a particular threat to one of the nation's most well-known endangered species — was scuttled last week by opposition from a handful of lawmakers.
Despite that failure, the bill may help focus needed public attention on a difficult regulatory issue, one involving the collision of two conflicting public-policy priorities.
Lead doesn't just kill by tearing a hole in vital organs. The soft metal is a potent neurotoxin, which is why the federal government banned it a generation ago in paint and gasoline. The toxic effect is not limited to human beings, which is why the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1991 instituted a nationwide ban on lead in ammunition used to hunt waterfowl.
Lead ammunition may still be used legally, however, to hunt upland game birds and mammals. This continues despite a growing body of evidence implicating spent shot and bullet fragments in the poisoning death of hawks, eagles and other raptors, including one of the rarest birds in the world.
Biologists have known for more than two decades that the California condor is particularly vulnerable to lead poisoning. Between 1965 and 1985, when the huge vulture was rapidly approaching extinction, two of the 19 known condor fatalities were due to acute lead toxicity.
Between 1982 and 1985, biologists measured high lead levels in the blood of 10 condors. By 1987, when last of the wild birds was taken into captivity and the entire population had fallen to 26 birds, one more condor had died of lead poisoning.
With the entire population breeding in zoos, the lead threat diminished. But in 1992, biologists began releasing some of the products of that captive-breeding program back into the wild. At least nine released condors have died of lead poisoning since then in California and Arizona, and about two dozen have had to be captured and treated by veterinarians to detoxify them.
That continuing threat poses a serious challenge to the $40 million condor rescue effort. A population that requires vet checks and expensive detox treatments on a regular basis can hardly be described as self-sustaining and wild, which is the stated goal of the recovery program.
Eliminating the sources of lead in condor habitat is an obvious solution, but it has proved impossible so far. The reasons for this are political, not technological or scientific.
The evidence is fairly convincing that the major source of lead that's poisoning condors comes from spent bullets and pellets in game carcasses and gut piles left by hunters. Several of the dead or sick condors actually had those pellets or fragments in their digestive systems when they were examined.
Studies involving X-ray examination of carcasses and viscera collected in the field show an abundance of such fragments. And there's simply no other plausible dietary source of lead in the condors' environment.
The state and federal agencies involved have refused to impose any sort of a bullet ban, calling only for voluntary steps by hunters to use nontoxic ammunition. Yet, there is no mechanism in place to determine whether that's working, or to set a deadline for such a determination. Meanwhile, condors continue to fall sick and die, a costly impediment to the species' recovery and an indication that voluntary steps are not adequate.
In response, Assemblyman Pedro Nava introduced a bill that would have prohibited use of lead bullets for hunting big game in selected parts of the condors' foraging territory. It was scuttled last week by an Assembly committee, a victim of opposition by hunting groups, which erroneously portrayed it as an attack on their rights, and by firearm and ammunition manufacturers, who falsely claimed there's no viable alternative to lead bullets.
Nava, D-Santa Barbara, has promised to try again. If he does, he could use some allies. And where better to find them than among the ranks of California's sportsmen and sportswomen? Hunters have long been at the forefront of wildlife and habitat conservation in the United States, a laudable record of leadership and accomplishment.
For the most part, however, those efforts have been directed at species hunters like to shoot. The condor's persistent vulnerability to bullets offers the hunting lobby a chance to prove that it supports true wildlife conservation, not just those efforts that ensure an ample supply of targets.
