Conference on lead coming up

[Outdoor Writer]

May 9, 2008

By JOHN MILLER

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

 

BOISE, Idaho -- The potential risk of lead poisoning from high-velocity bullets, whether to carrion-eating condors in the Grand Canyon or to food bank patrons in the Midwest, is the subject of a scientific conference next week.

 

The issue has been heightened since North Dakota and Minnesota officials instructed food bank operators to clear their shelves of venison donated by hunters this year.

 

The move raised complaints from Safari Club International of Somerset, N.J., whose members gave about 316,000 pounds of venison to the needy last year under the group's Sportsmen Against Hunger program, and Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry of Williamsport, Md., which donates more than 282,000 pounds of venison in 27 states annually.

 

The four-day gathering that begins Monday at Boise State University includes more than 50 presentations on issues ranging from lead poisoning among subsistence hunting Inuits in Alaska and Russia, lead levels in ravens in southern Yellowstone National Park, lead found in swans in Western Washington state and the politics of nontoxic ammunition.

 

"You're collecting a huge weight of evidence to infer or perhaps even prove there's a serious health risk, certainly to wildlife, but perhaps even to humans," said Rick Watson, vice president of The Peregrine Fund in Boise, a raptor recovery center that is sponsoring the conference.

 

"That should promote if not actual remediation of the problem, then further research on where there are gaps in that knowledge," Watson said Friday.

 

Lead poisoning has been linked to learning disabilities, behavioral problems and, at very high levels, seizures, coma, and death.

 

Watson said his group realized there might be a connection between lead poisoning, bullets, venison and humans after 1996, the year it began reintroducing rare California condors in northern Arizona. As many as 60 now soar over the Grand Canyon and southern Utah, but researchers and the Arizona Game and Fish Department found the scavengers were ailing from lead poisoning after eating hunter-killed deer and leftover gut piles.

 

In 2006, five condors died of lead poisoning and 90 percent of the rest had signs of exposure.

 

To learn more, Peregrine Fund researchers killed two deer with high-velocity lead ammunition and found that the bullets fragmented on impact, leaving the animals' flesh riddled with hundreds of microscopic lead particles.

 

"In the process of doing that study, we didn't want to waste the deer meat we had shot, so we had it processed," Watson said. "We thought, 'For interest's sake, let's take a look at some of these package to see if there was any lead' - and there was."

 

Skeptical, Dr. William Cornatzer of Bismarck, N.D., a physician, hunter and Peregrine Fund board member, used a CT scan to examine about 100 packets of venison from local food giveaway programs and found 60 percent had multiple lead fragments.

 

"There isn't much to argue," Cornatzer said. "It shows there is this toxic metal in our ground venison that we hunters have been eating for the last 50 years."

 

While no cases of lead poisoning from venison had been reported, his research helped lead to the warning to food banks in North Dakota in March. Days later, Minnesota followed suit after separate tests in that state.

 

Safari Club officials have contend there is no scientific basis for abandoning thousands of pounds of meat that otherwise would go to poor families at a time of rapidly escalating food costs.

 

Gene Rurka, chairman of the group's humanitarian efforts, said dumping venison on the basis of a few anecdotal studies was premature.

 

"I just can't imagine there's that kind of lead intrusion in the meat," Rurka said. "If it's a health issue, certainly, it's a concern, but to go out and say there's one guy who took a sampling of meat, and to use that across the entire program, it is totally unfair."

 

Watson said such skepticism is a key reason for the conference.

 

Among other reports, his group plans to release preliminary findings of a continuing study of packaged venison from 30 deer killed by researchers with high-velocity ammo and processed by 30 butchers in Wyoming. Watson, one of the authors, said the findings so far mirror the conclusions in North Dakota and Minnesota.

 

"We've effectively demonstrated that lead does get into venison, both hamburger and steaks," he said. "It's at levels sufficently high enough to be a concern to people who get those packets. We don't know what risk, but we know they are at some risk."

 

[firstcoueswas80]

How long have we been eating animals that we have harvested with our firearms containing lead? And look at us, we have all turned out alright (well, minus cooze'n'sheep and coozefan)

 

I dont get it. I honestly dont. BUT, I know its coming sooner than we think, so I will be working up loads for my rifles with the Nosler E tip or the TSX.

 

On a side note, how do officers hope to enforce this? I have seen ONE officer EVER while out hunting and that was this past August while chasing pigs with my bow.

[DesertBull]

"We've effectively demonstrated that lead does get into venison, both hamburger and steaks," he said. "It's at levels sufficently high enough to be a concern to people who get those packets. We don't know what risk, but we know they are at some risk."

 

I'm at MUCH higher risk when I drive to the grocery store on the same roads that drinkers are driving on. Why not ban booze?

 

Seat belts, helmets, tobacco, etc, etc, etc. We are living in the world's biggest nanny state.

[SilentButDeadly]

"......a huge weight of evidence to infer or perhaps even prove there's a serious health risk, certainly to wildlife,"

 

They're right, lead can in fact be dangerous to the health of wildlife, especially when its traveling out the barrel of the gun...

[az4life]

What a bunch of horse squeeze. For years, we have lived on meat harvested with lead bullets. I should think that the modern bullets hold together more than the older ones, and besides, if you ever bit into a shot pellet from a bird, what is the first thing you do? Spit it out. Duh...

[.270]

don't drink the koolaid fellers. it's a trick. Lark.

[Outdoor Writer]

For years, we have lived on meat harvested with lead bullets.

 

Indeed. Probably accounts for the large number of hunters with learning disabilities, too. -TONY

[Non-Typical Solutions]

Somebody get me a BB gun...............................................