By KEVIN HOWE, Herald Staff Writer
Public testimony on a controversial ban on hunting bullets containing lead and regulations of marine protected areas on the Central Coast will be heard by the state Fish and Game Commission at its meeting Friday in Bodega Bay.
The commission voted unanimously at its Feb. 2 meeting in Monterey to serve notice of its intent to amend hunting regulations for 2007-2010 with the aim of eliminating lead bullets in the California condor range.
In addition, the commission is expected to finalize regulations of a string of marine protected areas on the coast between between Pigeon Point and Point Concepción -- an area that includes all of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary -- covering fishing, boating, kelp and shellfish harvesting, and other recreational or commercial activities.
The lead bullet ban is intended to protect California condors that have been reintroduced into the wild since 1997 and which biologists say are particularly prone to lead poisoning from eating carcasses or offal left by hunters that contain bullet fragments.
Condor recovery experts have systematically monitored lead exposure in condors since 1997, during which time five condors have died of lead poisoning -- one in California, one in Utah and three in Arizona. An additional 26 condors suspected of being poisoned by bullets have received emergency chelation treatment to reduce toxic lead levels.
The commission is considering four alternative actions on the lead bullet issue: making no change in current regulations, banning them statewide, or two proposals banning them within specific deer hunting areas. The areas under consideration are the South Unit A deer zone and deer zones D7 through D13, or only in South Unit A and zones D-9-D13.
The lead ban would apply to centerfire cartridge bullets, muzzeloading balls, shotgun slugs and buckshot used to take any big game or used to take nongame animals, but does not include rimfire cartridge bullets, such as the commonly used .22 rimfire.
The deer zones are areas with boundaries already well known to deer hunters, according to the state Department of Fish and Game, and delineated on Fish and Game maps.
Some hunting organizations, notably the California Rifle and Pistol Association, oppose the ban, contending that a single condor death in the state is hardly grounds for an all-out ban on lead bullets and questioning whether, if the condors prove susceptible to poisoning or injury by swallowing the copper big-game bullets that would be allowed, all hunting with firearms would subsequently be banned.
Last November a consortium of environmental activists, including the Wishtoyo Foundation, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles seeking a ban on the use of lead bullets by hunters in the state's condor ranges.
The plaintiffs cited studies showing that lead from bullets left in carcasses or gut piles from game animals is a major source of lead poisoning in the endangered condors.
The assertion that lead bullets and fragments in carcasses eaten by condors are a major source of lead poisoning for the endangered birds was confirmed in August by scientists at the University of California-Santa Cruz, who published a study online in the journal Environmental Science & Technology that examined and analyzed lead from rifle bullets and shotgun pellets.
The UC-Santa Cruz researchers used a "fingerprinting" technique based on the unique isotope ratios found in different sources of lead. The technique enabled them to match the lead in blood samples from condors to the lead in ammunition.
In February, Tejon Ranch Corp. announced that nonlead ammunition will be required for all hunting and predator control on its 270,000-acre Southern California ranch starting in 2008 to protect condors that forage there.
The commission has identified 20 proposed marine protected areas, parks, reserves and preserves on the coast of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties established to protect resident and migratory fish, birds, marine mammals and other species.
The commissioners are expected to set limits on kelp harvesting near Cannery Row and Pacific Grove and rules for fishing on other areas of the coast, as well as offshore and in Monterey Bay.
The commission will convene at 8:30 a
.m. at the University of California-Davis Bodega Bay Marine Laboratory lecture hall, 2099 Westside Road, Bodega Bay.
If you go • What: California Fish and Game Commission • Where: UC-Davis Marine Laboratory lecture hall, 2099 Westside Road, Bodega Bay • When: 8:30 a.m. Friday • Information: www.fgc.ca.gov
Kevin Howe can be reached at 646-4416 or khowe@montereyherald.com.
