Guest editorial by hunter Anthony Prieto on the new non-lead ammunition regulations.
By Anthony Prieto
Sunday, June 29, 2008
New hunting regulations requiring nonlead ammunition in the range of the California condor in Central and Southern California go into effect this week to prevent further lead poisonings of California condors.
I am the co-founder of Project Gutpile (http://projectgutpile.blogspot.com/), a Web site for California hunters on the latest data, technology, availability and ballistic information on nonlead ammunition. I've been a volunteer for 10 years with the condor recovery effort and have hunted Southern California for blacktail deer and wild pigs for the past 22 years.
I've seen and heard both sides of the lead-am-munition debate and have been side by side with both hunters and conservationists in the field. Hunting with lead ammo left me no choice but to bury my lead-tainted gutpiles. In 1998, I was introduced to the Barnes' 100 percent copper bullet. It shot better. It was faster, retained nearly all its weight, and delivered a humane, knockout blow to the deer and pigs I shot. It is everything a hunter could possibly ask for in a round of ammo.
More importantly, it kept lead out of the environment. For eagles, condors, black bears and our own human consumption, lead poisoning is no longer coming from the end of my gun barrel.
Lead is a toxic metal. It most adversely affects eagles, vultures and other carrion-eating birds that suffer a slow, agonizing death from lead poisoning.
I am one of the 30,000 to 50,000 hunters affected by the new nonlead ammo requirements beginning Tuesday. We've switched from leaded gas to nonleaded, removed lead from paint, and continue to remove lead-painted toys off the shelves. Why the resistance with lead ammo? It was done with bird shot for waterfowl hunting, by replacing lead with more than a dozen nontoxic shot types in the 1990s.
In this initial year of the ban, nonlead ammo may be tough to buy over the shelves, unless you go to a Bass Pro Shop or Cabelas — or you can purchase it online. Hands-free phones are also hard to find, but I'm sure most of us will take the time to research and invest in one come Tuesday, the day the handheld-cell-phone-while-driving ban also goes into effect.
The simple rule of supply and demand will make nonlead ammo more available.
