#lead ammunition

20 million birds and other animals die annually after ingesting lead left behind by hunters

In March, conservationists cried foul when new U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke overturned an Obama-administration ban on using lead ammunition or fishing tackle on federal lands. Lead is toxic to the neurological systems of animals that ingest it, killing millions each year. Though lead's poisonous effects on wildlife have been known for more than a century, eliminating it from nature continues to be an uphill battle.

Obama Administration’s Last Minute Gun Law- Gone!

The Trump administration took out the Obama Administration’s last minute attempt at gun laws on March 5.  On the very last day of the Obama administration, former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe issued a directive banning all lead ammunition and lead fishing tackle on certain federal lands. “This was a reckless, unilateral overreach that would have devastated the sportsmen’s…

She died. Why? Because her body was loaded with lead, 20x toxic levels. How did lead get into her body? Either she ate an animal that was shot by a hunter with lead bullets, or a fish that had lead tackle in it. Thanks to our new Department of the Interior secretary zinke, other eagles will die. Why? Because, as his first official act, zinke lifted the ban on lead ammunition and fishing tackle on federal lands imposed by President Obama. Why? Because the NRA wanted it gone.

So this beautiful bird is another victim of trump.

(Note, my childish behavior continues. I was capitalizing zinke’s name until this episode. I thought he would be halfway decent. Wrong. He is now officially demoted to lower letter nomenclature, like his boss trump, the occupant of the white house.)

Excerpt:

After people all across the country learned that countless bald eagles are dying because of lead poisoning — and U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke just overturned a ban on lead bullets that previously helped protect them — another bald eagle was admitted to the Blue Mountain Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center in Oregon.

The bird couldn't eat. And the level of lead in her body was dangerously high. It's likely that she ingested an animal carcass that was left to rot after it was shot with lead bullets by a hunter, or ingested lead fishing tackle. Because lead bullets and fishing tackle are so prevalent, bald eagles keep dying of lead poisoning. If hunters opted for non-lead ammunition, so many needless deaths could be prevented.

"Sadly, we admitted another bald eagle yesterday," Blue Mountain executive director Lynn Tompkins, who has been trying to save bald eagles and other raptors in need for the past 30 years, told The Dodo at the time. "Her lead level is 385 micrograms per deciliter. It is nearly 20 times what is considered toxic." Wildlife rehabilitators examined the bird and found that there was lead in her digestive tract.

Tompkins and her staff did all they could for the bird, but she became another victim of a totally preventable problem. They tried to force-feed her rabbit fur in hopes that it will help her regurgitate the lead before it poisoned the rest of her body, but she absolutely refused to eat. "She died a few hours later," Tompkins said. "We could not get the lead in her gut out."

This picture kind of brings the issue home:

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

A federal judge today ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take measures to protect endangered wildlife harmed by expanded hunting and fishing on national wildlife refuges. The protections include phasing out the use of poisonous lead ammunition and tackle at several refuges across the country.

The legal victory resolves a lawsuit filed last year by the Center for Biological Diversity challenging the Trump administration’s decision to expand hunting and fishing on 2.3 million acres across 147 wildlife refuges and national fish hatcheries.

“This win protects endangered wildlife on refuges that were specifically created to protect them,” said Camila Cossío, staff attorney at the Center. “The Fish and Wildlife Service knows that using lead ammunition and tackle poisons wildlife and people. I’m hopeful that the protections stemming from this lawsuit are just the beginning.”

Use of lead ammunition and tackle can poison endangered animals like whooping cranes that ingest lead when feeding in fields and waterways. The Center’s lawsuit precipitated an upcoming requirement that will require the public use non-lead ammunition and fishing tackle at Indiana’s Patoka National Wildlife Refuge, where endangered whooping cranes live.

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

The Center for Biological Diversity, Texas Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Sierra Club filed a formal legal petition today calling on the U.S. Department of the Interior to phase out the use of lead ammunition and fishing tackle on national wildlife refuges. Numerous scientific studies have linked lead ammunition to poisonings of wildlife and people.

“The evidence is compelling that Secretary Haaland must take the commonsense step of phasing out toxic lead ammo and fishing tackle on our national wildlife refuges,” said Jonathan Evans, environmental health legal director at the Center. “Switching to lead substitutes can stop the often slow, painful poisoning deaths of wildlife on refuges that are specifically established to protect them.”

Despite being banned in 1992 for hunting waterfowl, spent lead ammunition used for other hunting continues to poison over 130 different species of wildlife, including eagles, swans, endangered whooping cranes, and endangered California condors. Many birds also consume lead-based fishing tackle lost in lakes and rivers.

“There are safer, cost-effective alternatives available today to protect Texas families from lead-poisoned game,” said Rebecca Bernhardt, executive director of Texas Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Phasing out lead ammo and tackle promotes a healthy, toxic-free wildlife refuge system for everyone.”

The Ventana Wildlife Acculturation is the only parlor that releases condors afterpiece into the wild in the Capacious Sur round in relation with California. With a record of releasing 50 birds thereon 1997, this group and others like it are slowly reintroducing this magnificent bird to its natural habitat.<\p>

The catch is that condors don't hunt their own prey. Instead, they scavenge. Frequently they get their meal from marine mammals which have ended awake on the shores. Other times they scavenge carcasses that proclaim been sinister by predators or the leftovers of human hunters - and human hunters use lead bullets.<\p>

Get the Precipitate Erroneous<\p>

The disconcertment with lead bullets is significant. Lead bullets cleave and scatter kithless as they pass through the musk-ox. Frequently, they end up disbursed finished the organs, and the emotiomotor piles socialistic posterior along by hunter are full as for lead. Complete of the birds which have been unbound in the Of marriageable age Sur corridor acquire had on be treated in place of tip poisoning at least already for that reason far.<\p>

Real coupled with a maxim passed in 2007 that prohibits the use of lead based ammunition within condor territory, compliance is iffy. The expostulate is convincing hunters who need always used lead ammunition that something undifferentiated copper or alloy desideratum do the same job just as snug, without endangering the birds quite consequently much.<\p>

Finding a Solution Everyone Can Mercurial With<\p>

Even though the condor unglue program has been prudently successful, lead isn't the only confound. Hunters continue to poach the birds, just as they did before they were ranked upon the endangered animal lists. With fines over $20,000, 5 years about probation and 200 hours on community activity called for with a violation, those caught find themselves within a lot more trouble than inner man imagined.<\p>

Since the condors being released on the North Coast can't travel far, there being no reliable or safe onrush path elsewhere, their habitat is limited. Accommodations decision need up be ready-prepared to the skies that those condors which are stamp in the furious can survive.<\p>