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Environmental activists cheered the California Fish and Game Commission’s decision to adopt regulations banning the use of lead ammunition for hunting throughout the Golden State. In a unanimous vote, the Commission opted to phase out lead bullets, which hunters groups are calling a de-facto ban on hunting in the state. Environmentalists, on the other hand, are saying these regulations will save California Condors and Golden Eagles from getting lead poisoning. [....] But conflicting federal and state regulations over non-lead ammo only bolster critics’ claims that the lead bullet ban is a de-facto ban on hunting. The federal government is preventing...

The National Rifle Association has asked to intervene in a lawsuit seeking to force the agency to ban the use of lead in ammunition. The NRA, joined by Safari Club International, claims its members "who use lead-based ammunition in their hunting and shooting sports activities will be impaired if they are no longer able" to do so. The lawsuit against the EPA was filed by the Trumpeter Swan Society and the Center for Biological Diversity -- the group that has pursued the lead ban issue relentlessly in recent years. Each time, however, the Environmental Protection Agency has turned aside CBD's...

Enlarge Image In danger. The California condor is threatened by lead poisoning from bullets in scavenged carcasses. Credit: Joe Burnett Spreading its wings to a 3-meter span, flying at a speed of up to 96 kph, and living as long as 60 years, the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is one of the world’s most magnificent birds. It’s also one of the rarest. Only 22 condors were alive in 1982, due to poaching, habitat destruction, DDT poisoning, and shooting by cattle ranchers who mistakenly believed that the carrion-eating birds were killing young calves. An intensive captive breeding program has increased...

Seven US conservation groups on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, accusing the government of failing to regulate the use of toxic lead bullets in hunting. Lead bullets have been shown to fragment upon impact, leaving bits behind in carcasses that other animals scavenge. The practice can cause lead poisoning in species such as the endangered California condor, eagles, swans and more. A petition by 100 environmental groups to the EPA in March, asking for the agency to regulate the components of ammunition used in hunting under the Toxic Substances Control Act, was refused amid strong opposition...

Citing risks to birds and to human health, roughly 100 environmental groups formally asked the federal Environmental Protection Agency this week to ban or at least impose limits on lead in the manufacturing of bullets and shotgun pellets for hunting or recreation. The use of such ammo by hunters puts about 3,000 pounds of lead into the environment annually and causes the death of 20 million birds each year from lead poisoning, said Jeff Miller, a conservation advocate at one of the groups, the Center for Biological Diversity. Consumption of meat from animals that are shot with lead bullets also...

The Supreme Court's recent McDonald and Heller decisions have thus far thwarted the gun grabbers' best efforts by upholding the individual's right to own firearms. Late Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency added another victory to the list as it shot down an attempt to undermine the Second Amendment through the regulation of bullets. On Aug. 3, the American Bird Conservancy and groups like Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to ban traditional lead ammunition as a "health risk." Obviously, the argument was not that recipients of a 45-caliber slug might suffer from lead poisoning. Instead, these...

Here's the link to the EPA documents and online means of leaving a pulic comment. http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#docketDetail?R=EPA-HQ-OPPT-2010-0681 and click on "Comment Due" Here's the comment I left: If you COMMIE APPARATCHIKS are hell bent on banning lead bullets, then be aware that many of the 100+ million gun owners in this country will be more than happy to come to DC to personnally deposit their lead bullets.

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   ARIZONA: NRA WINS RIGHT TO DEFEND HUNTERS AGAINST LAWSUIT SEEKING TO BAN LEAD AMMUNITION   Friday, January 15, 2010   Phoenix, Az. - Judge Paul G. Rosenblatt has ruled that the NRA has a right under federal law to intervene in a lawsuit filed, in the plaintiff’s own words, as part of a campaign “to ban the use of lead bullets[.]” NRA will now be able to defend hunter’s rights against the claims of extremist environmental groups that filed the lawsuit.The lawsuit, filed January 27, 2009, by the Center for Biological...

Firearms Industry Rejects National Park Service Classification of Traditional Ammunition as a Health Threat; Offers to Work with NPS on Hunter Education Efforts In response to an announcement today regarding a National Parks Service program encouraging hunters to voluntarily switch to alternative ammunition, the National Shooting Sports Foundation rejected NPS's categorization of traditional ammunition as a health threat. NSSF is offering to work with the National Park Service to develop measures to educate hunters about steps they can take to prevent scavengers from ingesting lead fragments of spent traditional ammunition. The park service is proposing to ban, at a minimum,...

Fish and Game Commission considering four possible courses of action A possible ban on lead bullets for hunting will be on the state Fish and Game Commission agenda when it meets next month 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 an aim of eliminating lead bullets in the California condor range. It did not take action on the issue at Friday's commission meeting in Arcata, postponing action on the lead bullet ban to its April 13 meeting in Bodega Bay....

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...