Getting the Lead Out (lead bullets)

LA Times ^ | July 31, 2004 | Masthead Editorial

[neverdem]

EDITORIAL

There was California Condor 36 again, showing off for tourists this summer along the side of Highway 1 near Big Sur, unruffled as people came within a couple of feet, snapping pictures. Fun for tourists, but an example of why restoring California's flagship endangered species is proving to be such a delicate effort.

The last fully wild condor was captured near Tejon Ranch, on the far side of the I-5 Grapevine, in 1987. It entered a captive breeding program that so far has cost about $35 million yet has met with shaky success. The post-captivity condors — there are 47 of them now released in California — are less afraid of people than the original wild birds. Fear of humans is a learned, not natural, behavior for condors, experts say, and so far the released population lacks wary elders to teach the youngsters. Worse, condors that like hanging around people teach their behavior to others in the flock.

Towns and other developments are a magnet for curious condors, which are drawn to the buzz of activity — an evolutionary reminder, experts conjecture, of times when a ruckus meant a feeding frenzy that might leave a carcass for them to pick clean. In modern times, those primeval impulses work against already fragile chances of survival. For unknown reasons, condors like to eat small, shiny objects — like bottle caps and glass. They will drink antifreeze and dip into a puddle of oil. They're the toddlers of the avian world, curious, mischief-prone, always testing the limits and putting the wrong things in their mouths. As a result, some of the released birds have died.

Their new lives in the wilderness are hardly wild. They've been trained to avoid power poles, are continually radio-monitored, pulled back for more training when they get chummy with humans and fed by keepers who leave meat around for them to keep them from eating lead-tainted carcasses.

[umgud]

Their time has come and gone....... some things just aren't worth saving.

[riverrunner]

Just what I was thinking.

[Sacajaweau]

I agree. A waste of time and money. They were on their way out for a reason. The world changes. Nature does, too.

[Gun142]

Non-lead bullets for hunting exist, though they're more than twice as
expensive. It's a reasonable financial burden for an elective hobby. If
hunters can pay for the gasoline to power their SUVs and pickups into
hunting territory, they can certainly afford a less toxic bullet.

With the price of fuel; No, I can't afford more expensive bullets after filling the gas tank(s). That's just common sense :P

I don't know what the non-toxic bullets are made of but I seriously doubt some bird [so stupid it eats bullets] can crap one of those any easier than a lead pill.

[Luis Cyphier]

Typical of the LA slimes the real killer is not lead tainted carcasses it is chrome plated bumpers. They are just to big to get out of the way of a semi or a myriad of other vehicles in time when feasting on road kill. All attempts at reintroduction are futile for now and they should be bred and maintained in captivity for however long it takes for us to advance beyond road kill and power lines.

[Atchafalaya]

So correct me if I am wrong; the Condor restoration (35 million, just about the real money test) is failing because the released birds are consuming lead and/or lead cored bullets from animals that they scavenge. Or, are they eating the "shiney-don't forget that qualifier" deadly pills that are just laying about like in a baited field. How many .223 equal a .308 equal a .45...? California hunters should be instructed that unlike Kerry, one must keep your eyes open when you squeeze the trigger; I don't think the "laying about " option is operative. What a bunch of bull. Smell test alert!

[TigersEye]

By eating the remains of hunter kills, condors ingest the lead. Five released condors have died of lead poisoning, according to Bruce Palmer, until recently the coordinator of the condor recovery effort. Lead has been found in two-thirds of the released birds.

As with ducks they probably die from eating an indigestable object not from lead poisoning. As the article says they eat bottle caps, nails etc. Some lead dissolves and finds its way to its tissues but it is the intestinal obstruction that kills.

There are many possible sources of lead. Eating rodents who gnawed on old boards with lead paint. Then there are the thousands of wheel weights thrown off of vehicles that litter the roads and ditches. They are shiny objects like bottle caps that they swallow because they are interesting. Are the enviro-wackos calling for banning lead wheel weights? Hell no!

This is one lefty group washing the hand of another lefty group.

[neverdem]

Tungsten and some other proposals,but IIRC, tungsten bullets have been found to be carcinogenic.

[an amused spectator]

I don't know what the non-toxic bullets are made of but I seriously doubt some bird [so stupid it eats bullets] can crap one of those any easier than a lead pill.

The entire point of the exercise is a bait-and-switch "poison pill" (pardon the expression) from the Greenies and the anti-gunners.

It's their usual tried and true progression:

• make up a bogeyman (condors being killed by lead bullets).
• prod for a switch to tungsten bullets (or something similar). The point is that you can cast lead bullets in your kitchen, but NOT tungsten bullets or their like.
• once you have enough willing dupes and/or have conned enough people, make an un-enforced switch to the new bullets at the state level.
• after a reasonable period of time, create a stir about troglodytes who don't adhere to the new law, and new bullets.
• crack down with massive fines and/or jail time.
• raise taxes & fees on the new bullets. start an ad campaign about the evils of not adhering to the new laws (Click It Or Ticket!)
• voila! making lead bullets in your kitchen is the same as making methamphetamines.
• lather, rinse & repeat, state by state.

Making money while legislating, mediaing & judiciarying social behavior! ;-)

[TERMINATTOR]

It's the crap the enviromentals leave around during their "nature experience". Perrier and Corona caps, wheel weights off their Volvo's they lose while stuck in the sand/mud, broken glass from their bottles they pitch out the window. Just all kinds of trash.

I've seen these pinheads in action at the "Condor Sanctuary" near Ridgecrest/Inyokern, out in the mohave desert. They're a danger to man and beast.

[philman_36]

I'm just another of those loony alarmists and feeling a little like an afoot Paul Revere. (I got knocked off of my horse some time ago)
Can't take your guns, we'll control the Ammo (my title)
...to produce lead-free 5.56mm training ammunition as part of a U.S. Army initiative to move to “green ammunition” in the 21st century.
Snip...the environmentally friendly rounds fired from the M-16 rifle use a core made of tungsten-tin or tungsten-nylon mix instead of lead.

And look how quickly it made it from the "military" arena to the "private" arena.

[philman_36]

A "this may interest you" ping.

[TigersEye]

You are exactly right. Here is another door they have tried to close; I asked a tire shop if they had any used wheel weights. (they should have plenty) A reloader friend had asked me to inquire. They told me that EPA regs prohibited them from giving or selling them. They have to turn them in as toxic waste.

My advice to shooters patriots; whether you reload or not, hoard lead.

[TigersEye]

I know exactly what you mean. A few years ago I was travelling through northern Nebraska. It is pristine farmland up there and there isn't much litter on the roads. The people there care about their lands. It was striking to see that the only litter was things like Power Bar wrappers and Dasani bottles and other 'natural foods' type packaging. Not the kind of stuff Nebraska farmers and ranchers eat, not exclusively anyway. Just the kind of stuff thenthitive nature lover types eat.

Then there was the Texas State Park I stayed in one night. It is east of El Paso and is centered around a big rock that sticks up out of the flat desert. Apparently climbers really like it. All around the base of it are signs imploring them not to drop their 'energy bar' wrappers. The signs were ignored of course. More hypocritical 'nature lovers.'

[concentric circles]

They better worry about more than lead.

Since the program of captive breeding and release began the following fatalities have occurred, and this is not a complete list:

51 Condor deaths in the wild, including;

9 power line electrocutions,
4 wildfire deaths,
3 killed by golden eagles,
3 killed by coyotes, 1 by unknown predator,
2 drowned while drinking.

[Trod Upon]

Perhaps the California Condor should be assisted into that sweet night of extinction. Open season on the flying blight!