A few birds lost to lead poisoning make no difference to the population levels, unless the birds are a longlived species that it particularily at risk of ingesting lead. A plausible case has been made for Californian Condors.
The lefties love their stupid windmills....I wonder how many birds are killed by them?
13.7 million birds die every day. The 20 million is not a correct number as the majority of exposure has been decreased by steel shot for waterfowling.
Condors live in the lead mining area of CA and they take in the tailings for their gizzard. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service the large majority of lead poisoning of Condors is due to lead residuals from leaded gas.
A lot of fraud going on in this area.
The best number I have seen for lead poisoning is that it is equal to 45 minutes of natural bird deaths. Per year.
Doesn’t even make it onto the charts.
If enviros would prefer that I use lead-free bullets, they are free to pay me to do so. Clearly, they would prefer to talk government into coercing me via regulations having the effect of law to the same end.
Apart from all the lead that naturally exists in surface deposits, like near Leadville, Colorado, if I thought that a few grams of copper-coated lead in millions of tons of soil and rock were a real threat to the biosphere then I would choose some other bullet. It is for this reason that I don’t use depleted uranium, even though it has superior ballistics due to its density.
The Center for Biological Diversity (along with all the rest of the envirowackos) has no real beef with lead, they want to eliminate hunting and fishing. Their ruse is incremental.
I thought everyone was aware of that, no?
“Lead free” ammo is for the birds, indeed. The designation “lead free” includes not only the bullets, but also the primers. Lead styphenate stabilizes the primers (the component that makes the cartridge go “bang!” In so doing, manufacturers like Remington, Federal, and Black Hills have told me shelf life of their ammo is “indefinite.” Conversely, so called “green” or “lead free” ammo absent lead styphenate in their primers, have a limited shelf life of about 5-6 years. After that, the primers go dead. And, you can bet some govt. weasel is working on a way to shorten even that shelf life span. I avoid lead free “green” ammo like the plague.