lead toxicity and regulations

Guys,

The following title and abstract is from a paper in a recent issue the Journal of Wildlife Management:

Management and Conservation Article
Blood Lead Levels of Common Ravens With Access to
Big-Game Offal

ABSTRACT Despite increased knowledge about environmental toxins and changes in lead use (i.e., the mandated use of nonlead paint, gasoline, and shotgun pellets used for hunting waterfowl on federal lands), lead poisoning continues to occur in terrestrial birds. The degree of exposure and its demographic effect, however, continue to be described, emphasizing the growing concern over lead exposure. We examined 302 blood samples from common ravens (Corvus corax) scavenging on hunter-killed large ungulates and their offal piles to determine if lead rifle-bullet residuum was a point source for lead ingestion in ravens. We took blood samples during a 15-month period spanning 2 hunting seasons. Of the ravens tested during the hunting season, 47% exhibited elevated blood lead levels (10 lg/dL) whereas 2% tested during the nonhunting season exhibited elevated levels. Females had significantly higher blood lead levels than did males. Our results confirm that ravens are ingesting lead during the hunting season and are likely exposed to lead from rifle-shot big-game offal piles. (JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT 72(1):240”“245; 2008)

A couple of things you all should know about this. The lead projectile ban issue is not just in CA any more. A friend in NW WY told me that as a result of the findings on lead levels in ravens, eagles, and vultures, land managers were designating the area around the Elk Range near Jackson Hole as a no-lead hunting area. This is not a condor area as have been some of the other designated areas, and some of the lead levels they are finding in these birds are alarmingly high. Also, what they are talking about here is exposure from gut piles, not wounded animals who were lost.

However, the one issue that has not yet been and addressed and, in my opinion, really needs to be is the relative risk of exposure from different types of firearms. If anyone bothers to test it, I think they will find that most exposure comes from high velocity lead core bullets from centerfires and possibly from inlines firing saboted modern bullets that may fragment on impact. Some of the other papers that have been published on this issue show microscopic lead fragments in the tissue surrounding exit wounds from high velocity bullets. Scavenging birds use those exit wounds as entry points into carcasses and are hence at high risk for exposure. I do not believe this is nearly as much of an issue with slow-moving and highly-cohesive pure lead round balls. The problem is that we are a small market, and we really need to get agencies thinking about those of us who hunt with PRB and funding such research before we are completely shut out of large areas of the US or worse.

The only way to get them thinking is to talk with them. My suggestion is to do it nicely and mention your concern over these issues. Ask if anyone is considering the relative risk of different types of lead projectiles, particularly low velocity round balls for which there is currently no substitute. Mention your concern over the potential loss of this link to our country's hunting history and tradition. Mention the relative responsibility of traditional round ball hunter, who are less likely to wound and lose an animal.

My feeling is that this issue is gaining momentum and it will be addressed by land managers. We traditional muzzleloader hunters need to make our voices heard on that issue, and we need to do this in a rational manner that makes land managers take our side. There are so few of us that we could easily be left out of the discussion altogether.

Respectfully,

Sean

 

[BrownBear]

Good post. Good food for thought and talking points.

What part of southern NM?

I'm originally from Silver and Hatchita, but with kin all over from Cruces to Cliff.

 

[RC]

"We took blood samples during a 15-month period spanning 2 hunting seasons. Of the ravens tested during the hunting season, 47% exhibited elevated blood lead levels (10 lg/dL) whereas 2% tested during the nonhunting season exhibited elevated levels"""-----------------------------Okay I ain't very smart and may be missing something here but would someone tell me why, birds sampled after huntin season are only 2%?????? where did the lead go they digested durin hunting season? sorry but I don't get it? :redface:

 

[RedFeather]

So, why is this a problem, now? Are raven populations significantly decreased and, if so, why? How many hunters are there now vs years ago when bird populations were higher? If there were more hunters (and I suspect there may well have been, given the attitude of today's general public), then there was a lot more lead thrown around the woods in those days. Hard to point to one thing in animal population studies.

Now, I can see the lead problem in marshlands from years and years of waterfowling. That kind of makes sense, as puddle ducks take up a lot of material from the bottom. But gut piles??? Even if a bullet fragments against a bone and slivers go into a deer's innards, how much is a raven going to consume, the whole thing? Plus they are in competition with other scavengers. I think this might have been an answer looking for a study.

 

[Mike Brooks]

I believe all this lead stuff is a bunch of BS. Why is there lead in gut piles? My bullets never go anywhere near the gut. If they did they go in one side and out the other. If this residue is being left behind I'd like to know who's putting it there. If all of this crapola is true, you'd think those people eating the rest of the animal ( the hunter and his family) would test high in lead levels.
Besides, who gives a dam about some ravens? :youcrazy:

 

[rabjr]

The only reason we have a lead problem is because certain people want there to be one.

 

[paulvallandigham]

The lie is contained in the same report. The conclusion that lead poses a permanent harm to wildlife, or will cause death in animals that ingest it from gutpiles, is a false conclusion. The fact that birds killed in Non-hunting season periods of time and tested indicates that the lead does not stay in the body of these birds. The fact that a blood level is " Elevated " means NOTHING. Its whether its at a lethal level that is important.

For example, I have a client who was a police firearms trainer, who worked at a police academy range for years. When lead became an issue, the school had all the staff give blood samples to measure lead levels. His was " elevated". It was far from lethal, but higher than the standard being promolgated by the EPA. So, he was taken off the range, and assigned teaching duties in the class room. A year later, his blood was tested, and his lead levels were back to normal or a little below. Improvments in ventilation were made to the range firing line, and the lead inhalation and elevating of lead levels in blood was reduced to standards, so that future instructors were not in any danger. But the older instructors, who had been removed from the range, were not allowed to return to range instructor duties, event though all their lead levels had returned to normal.

My point is that Lead levels vary from one area to another, because their are natural sources of lead as well as artificially placed sources, like hunting. But they are rarely fatal to anyone or any animal, and the levels go up and down depending on what they are eating. Its still a bit hard to imagine a bird, even the size of a crow( raven) eating a .30 caliber metal jacketed lead bullet, and because the lead levels, and the standard of lethality is not part of this text, the report amounts to little more than scare tactics. Shame on the authors.

Poor public policy decisions happen all the time when everyone gives blanket acceptance to anything" Scientific" that is presented, without questioning the techniques use, the standards, and as here, finding out if the lead levels are permanent, accumulate, or fluctuate depending on what the animal eats from season to season. The next question is " WHO COULD POSSIBLY BELIEVE THAT RAVENS ARE ENDANGERED TO THE POINT THAT YOU NEED TO CHANGE A MAJOR COMPONENT TO HUNTERS BEING ABLE TO CULL AND HARVEST YOUR ANIMALS HERDS? "

I am sorry if I offend bird lovers, but Ravens are not high on my list of concerns of animals that need laws to protect them. I don't know any place where they or some cousin are in short supply. The only reason we have a closed season on crows and ravens is because Mexico insisted on us putting a season on Crows in return for them closing seasons on other migratory waterfowl, such as geese, ducks, and cranes.

I would never spend one moment protecting ravens or crows from anything that might -MIGHT - kill a few of them, much less ban lead bullets from use in hunting season.

The reason we banned lead based paints, was because we allowed stupid parents to let their children eat paint in run down slums, did not demand that cities enforce their own housing codes, or require cities to enact and enforce codes to protect children from lead paint and irresponsible parents, as a condition of receiving continued Federal Aid. No, we had to pass a Federal Law that shifted the burden of being a responsible parent to the owners of the buildings, who had to remove the lead based paint. But that was more than 40 years ago, and virtually all the lead based paint problems are history. The opportunity for little kids to be eating paint chips remains, because their parents are still not expected to be responsible, but the lead is no longer in the chips.

Keep the problem in mind. Lead was found to be dangerous to little kids, because it can be stored in fatty tissues, including the brain, where it can cause or contribute to retardation. In adults, it is not stored in the brain, because our brains are already full developed. We don't use them well, but that is another matter. The primary cause of lead poisoning in children was lead paint, not lead balls or bullets, or traces of lead found in game taken by hunting.

The only reason that lead shot, or balls were banned, was becuase of an inaccurate, and faulty bit of science, taken from a preliminary report by a Graduate Student PHD candiate, Glenn Sanderson, at the U of Ill. who first reported what he thought was increased mortality in gucks and geese that he attributed to lead pellets being ingested by these dead animals. The animals had elevated lead levels in their blood, and there were lead pellets in their gullets. He therefore concluded that the source of the elevated lead levels in the blood came from this ingested lead pellets.

Later, he found they had made a major calculation error in estimating mortality figures even if the source of the lead toxins WAs the pellets in the craws. Glenn tried to get people to listen to him when he told them his research was wrong, and that it does not, in its final draft, support the idea that lead pellets ingested by migratory birds causes elevated blood levels and death. Autopsied done subsequent to his preliminary report indicated that all the dead ducks and geese actually had been wounded during duck season, and therefore were just part of the expected mortality already taken into consideration is setting bag limits and total season kill numbers. He could find no evidence that the use of lead shot caused more secondary deaths among birds, through ingestion.

He was too late, as the politicians had seized his work, and he no longer matter. They wanted to use this to destroy part of the gun and hunting industry, and they were not going to be denied.

 

[GreyWhiskers]

When the CA legislature passed the hunting ban on lead in about a third of the state I did some research into Dept of Fish and Game website. A study done on 25 condors found that most had elevated levels of lead in blood. According to DFG biologists, the condors are capable of getting rid of the lead after a certain amount of time. So if it was a one-time exposure they would be OK. But the birds continued to show high lead levels.

The study never determined where the lead exposure came from. Bullets found in dead game was one theory. As far as I know it's never been proved. GW

 

[TFoley]

Besides, who gives a dam about some ravens? :youcrazy:

The Great Spirit cares about ravens, and so do many of us who love life in all its shapes.

Best wishes

tac

 

Okay I ain't very smart and may be missing something here but would someone tell me why, birds sampled after huntin season are only 2%?????? where did the lead go they digested durin hunting season? sorry but I don't get it?

To answer your question, ravens migrate and move extensively within and often between years. That means the birds they were sampling in the off season were not the same ones as during the season. Ravens move into this area when the resources (gut piles and carcases) are available and disperse when they are not. Lead does not get metabolized. It stays in the system and does not go away. Lead in the blood stream means it is being assimilated into the body in an ionic form and there is a ton of peer reviewed literature on the toxic affects of lead in humans and other wildlife. You will never find a toxicologist who will debate the toxic properties of lead except those who get their funding from the lead paint industry or similar.

To address some of the other concerns raised here, I will say that federal law mandates the management of migratory birds and incidental take of those birds can constitute a violation of that law. To ask who cares about ravens is really not a serious question as they are a protected species and one of God's creatures. You might as well say who cares about trailer parks in Tornado alley. There are other birds in question here like the golden eagle, and you'd better bet that school kids and voting parents like eagles and think lead is bad for them. Whether on not you take a side on the issue of lead lead exposure, you have to agree that the voting public will not be on our side if it comes down to that. The majority of Americans do not hunt or vote, but more of them vote than hunt.

I did not post this here to start any fights. I posted it because I am a round ball hunter and I care about that. I will respectfully say that we need to get over the conspiracy theories and deal with this issue in a rational way before it deals us out altogether. The points I brought up in my initial post are a possible way to try to actively address that. I hope that some of you will read that post and consider it.

Sean

 

[Snakebite]

I wonder what the lead content is in the meat we take home and eat. If it's high in the gut pile, (where normally the bullet/ball doesn't hit (or shouldn't) it should really be high in the meat and then us. I think Mike Brooks is right, it's BS. Maybe they need to do a study on coyotes too, they take care of most of the gut piles in Texas. IMO the only lead that reduces their population is a well placed shot.

 

[50cal.cliff]

I want to know why some of the organization that are suppose to be on the hunters side, aren't jumping up here with there own experts and disputing this manure. The truth needs as much airtime as this farce or we are all going to be in trouble. :hmm:

 

[gmww]

I know locally we've seen over the years a lot of dead Swans in our county during the migration. Lead poisoning was the reason given. The state has been trying to figure out where they are ingesting the lead.

This year they have hired people to live by a suspected lake that had years of waterfowl hunting on it. It's very shallow. The idea is for the folks to scare off the swans when they land. I haven't heard the results as this started this year.

It will be interesting to see if this research shows anything such as the number of swans killed. By the way we can't hunt swans in our state.

 

RE swans and lead poisoning:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=swan+lead+poisoning&hl=en&lr=&btnG=Search

You can find the full-text of these articles at your nearest University library, and they have search engines that are directed at the scientific literature which will turn up more citations than Google Scholar and more recent ones. My suggestion to any one on any issue is to educate yourself, disregard hearsay and other's opinions, and formulate your own. The world is full of sheep, but a lot of sheep vote.


Sean

 

[scott k]

47% exhibited elevated blood lead levels (10 lg/dL)

If I'm reading that right, greater than 10 lg/dl. That is lower than mine when tested a few years ago and would seem low to my 17 lg/dl.
Lehigh...

 

[roundball]

And some of you laughed when I began posting test results using marbles instead of lead balls.

I have 100 each of 3 more sizes of glass marbles on their way...hope to get a better fit in the .50cal, and should definitely have some for a .54cal this time, and probably the .62cal...just depends on how they sort out...I just may have to invent a marble sorting device :grin:

 

[paulvallandigham]

I think you need to check your medical facts, Sean. I have a friend who was a firearms trainer at a police academy back when all this testing first began. He was found to have high lead levels, and was taken off the range, and assigned classroom work. The School had his blood tested annually, and a year after he stopped working on the range( his only lead exposure- inhaled) his blood lead levels were back down to normal. He wanted to go back to the range, but the Director preferred he stay in the classroom, as he could find lots of replacements for firearms training, but didn't have very many people as competent as my client to teach the course materials.

I know its a popular " myth" that lead can not be flushed from the system, or using your term, " Metabolized", but its just not true. The liver and kidneys get rid of heavy metals all the time, of all kinds. This myth is propagated by the anti-freedom forces who have political motives to disarm Americans, and stopping hunting is just a step along the way of their long term goals. They also seem to realize that if you use " Science" or medical", people are too impressed, or intimidated, to challenge them in debate. So they sell junk science, and quack medical " knowledge", because they can.

The problem with lead is with infant children, and people handling lead and other heavy metals that get elevated and toxic levels of lead, mercury, aluminum, etc. by inhaling vapors, or by oral ingestion of the dust. With infants, because their brains are still developing, eating lead paint could quickly reach toxic levels in their small bodies, and cause retardation and brain damage. Of course, we would not expect their parents to bear any responsibility for failing to supervise an infant, or removing and cleaning off chipped pain from surfaces in their apartments. So, Nanny Government stepped in almost 50 years ago and required and end to lead based paint, required cities to adopt building codes that outlawed lead based paints in areas that can be reached by little children, and modified the rules for VA, and FHA, loans for houses to require lead abatement by the owners if they wanted to sell a house to a buyer getting such financing. The result is that its next to impossible in this day and age to find a house going on the market that still has lead based paint exposed anywhere a child can reach. The houses have either been torn down, or the paint has been removed by prior owners.

OSHA regulations have required breather masks, and other protections for workers handling toxic metals, to protect them from fumes, and heavy metal. Workers are required to shower at work before doning street clothes, so that the heavy metals are no longer present in their hair, or on their skin. Lead levels are checked annual, and reports sent to OSHA monitors. If any elevated lead levels are found, inspectors show up at the factory, and find out the source. Remedial work is ordered and the company can face stiff fines if it evades or delays the corrective work. That is on top of the claims its insurance company will have to pay the workers who eventually become ill from these toxic materials. There are still people being diagnosed with Syllicosis from Asbestos exposure, many years after the correlation was made, and decades after the last exposure. That is because of the presense of the toxic substances in the linings of the lungs, NOT the blood stream.

 

Paul,

You'll have to excuse me. I'm a wildlife biologist who likes short replies. My wife is the toxicologist. I don't always get everything right in her field. However, right or wrong, it doesn't change the political realities of the situation. You can talk about how lead is an essential micronutrient until you are blue in the face. My suggestions are above, and they are only suggestions. If you prefer to follow your route, so be it. I do not have all the answers or even most of them. I do not know how far this thing will go and the ultimate extent of it. My experience as someone who's worked for the feds pretty extensively makes me expect there will be some overreaction on their part, but we generally suffer when that happens.

Now if you will excuse me, I'll step out and let this discussion go where it will. The floor is yours, Senor.

Sean

 

[Chasam2345]

I read about another study done years later using the original data. It seems the children with the highest lead levels were inner city kids who were also exposed the higher levels of pollution from car exhaust.Removing lead from gasoline solved more problems than removing it from paint. Of course the Anti's don't want to hear this-they ultimately want all our guns,and will promote any lie to achieve their goal.

 

[Many Klatch]

OK, long rambling response.

1)Recent studies by the Federal Govt. found that lead in a backstop in a rifle range, did not get into the soil or water because the lead oxidizes and the oxidized lead coating is not soluble in water.

2) Anyone that has driven on the Pennsylvania turnpike will notice all the dead trees along the route. The word is that lead killed them. What makes anyone think that lead from old gasoline fumes isn't still in the environment and getting into Ravens guts.

3) As a Roofing Contractor I have been exposed to lead, asbestos, PCB's, PVC's, oil and everything else that is supposed to be bad. I'm still here and I still put a couple of lead ball in my mouth when I am in a speed shoot. Good God, we all have to die of something.

OK nuff said.

Many Klatch