Posted on 02/09/2010 4:17:45 AM PST by marktwain
HELENA — Rob Domenech and his research associates didn’t know what they were looking for when they started testing the blood of golden eagles along Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front three years ago.
What they found was lead. In some cases, lots of it.
“This was kind of a shock to us,” he said in an interview from his Missoula office. “We never considered it.”
Domenech, executive director of Raptor View Research Institute, was one of hundreds of people to send comments to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission in what has become a controversial proposal to ban lead shot on state-owned wildlife management areas.
The commission meets in Helena Thursday to consider on the idea.
Unlike the vast majority of the commentators, Domenech and his associates say they support such a ban, or at least, they say, there’s enough question about the effects of lead on wildlife — and people — that Montana ought to begin educating hunters about the benefits of lead alternative ammunition.
Gary Marbut, executive director of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, said that the agency made no scientific case in favor of the ban and that hunters and gun owners have reason to be suspicious of such proposals.
(Excerpt) Read more at billingsgazette.com ...
I understand this lunacy in CA, but MT?????
Ya...so whats the normal lead level in a captivity bred eagle?
Yeah, because IF there is lead in the blood of wildlife, it MUST come from ammo. I mean, it doesn’t occur naturally in the environment or anything.
BTW..IMHO these issues ARE related at some level....
“Lead shot is already illegal nationwide when hunting waterfowl such as geese and ducks, which were known to accidentally ingest lead shot collecting in the bottom of lakes and rivers.”
I don’t buy the ingesting part. I do know this. We winged a hell of a lot more ducks with steel shot than died from lead ingestion.
Don’t know the rules now as I haven’t hunted in a few years, but you could hunt along a river, creek, pond with lead shot as long as you weren’t hunting waterfowl.
As far as this occuring in Mt. the demographics are changing there. More and more libs are moving there after fouling their nests elsewhere. Mt. has a democrap governor and don’t forget that asshat senator max baucus.
You’re right, nothing more than an attempt to make it more expensive and difficult to own and use a firearm. Further it will further reduce the number of hunters which will further reduce gun ownership.
In the case of eagles, most of the lead passes through. It is not the residue that kills them.
Yeah... and their gw data was just as accurate. LIARS ALL!
LLS
One of the Left’s favorite tactics is called, “gradualism.” Animal worshippers from the cities are proud of that tactic. Compromising with them against other firearms owners is the wrong thing to do.
Anti-Second-Amendment organizations should not be allowed to have so much control over government. They’re lying about lead, of course. Lead is heavier than surrounding water and soil. It sinks quickly.
Here’s another example of successful gradualism from the left aided by hunters themselves (city hunters).
Large bore revolvers can be carried easily—even during chores—and effectively used with wide, flat-nosed lead bullets by a well-trained farmer/rancher to defend against large bears. Rhetoric from kooks with attachments to brand names and the like aside,...
Shooting Holes in Wounding Theories:
The Mechanics of Terminal Ballistics
http://www.rathcoombe.net/sci-tech/ballistics/wounding.html
Bears don’t immediately charge after being hit with a round from any very noisy weapon. Such loads are more often humane for defense than the less predictable, often under-penetrating commercial hollow points, etc. Ruger Blackhawks in .45 Colt, for example, can safely fire heavier bullets as fast (fps) as a .44 magnum with less recoil. The same revolvers can fire the heaviest bullets (needed for adequate penetration in large and sometimes dangerous animals) at higher speeds than a .44 magnum.
Yet the city boy hunters have already joined the left in several states to outlaw hardcast bullets for hunting. Helping the enemies of our freedoms by compromising with them is not the way to avoid having your freedoms violated.
Left-leaning politicos from the cities should abandon their pursuits of control against residents of remote areas—especially in their efforts to stop rural residents from defending themselves.
Always follow the money.
HELENA — Rob Domenech and his research associates didn’t know what they were looking for when they started testing the blood of golden eagles along Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front three years ago.
Just what organization, would pay someone for such a study?
Yewreeka! It’s the motherload! Ropes, ladders, tree and mt climbing stuff, some scientific equipment, we gonna get rich testing eagle blood. No one ever thought of it before.
You, or you, or friends of yours, ever think of starting a lucrative research agency, testing eagle blood in MT?
You can bet your bottom dollar, that Rob and his research associate knew exactly what they were looking for when they began this exercise, they knew from the beginning was designed to bring them before the MT legislature.
I don’t mean to sound skeptical, or demean the study, but just be forthright and tell me who is funding this study. How you are managing to eat, and pay rent and all the travel, while you are doing this study. Oh and how you get an eagle to sit still for a blood test. There are a ton of Federal rules regarding eagles, are all of them being followed?
You can add the State of South Dakota to the list.
Evidence (extreme examples) to back up something in my comment that was intended to provoke more thought on evil alliances against Second Amendment rights. Too many hunters are narrow-minded due to their personal brand preferences (and too much television).
Gun Notes: The .45 Colt - Dissolving the Myth, Discovering the Legend
by John Linebaugh
http://www.customsixguns.com/writings/dissolving_the_myth.htm
And for those who don’t like reading such head-hurting technical material,...
Buffalo Bore
http://www.buffalobore.com/index.php?l=product_detail&p=38
Heavy .45 Colt +P - 325 gr. L.B.T.-L.F.N.(1,325fps/M.E. 1,267 ft.lbs.)
“These Heavy .45 Colt +P loads are safe in all LARGE FRAME Ruger revolvers.
(includes Blackhawk, Super Blackhawk, all pre-2005 Vaquero, Bisley, Redhawk)
These Heavy .45 Colt +P loads are NOT intended for the New Model Vaquero (small frame).”
The point here is that we shouldn’t help any left-leaning organization outlaw any Second Amendment rights of others.
“Just what organization, would pay someone for such a study?”
There is millions of dollars of grants available that these “scientists” live off of. They are leeches that don’t have any real jobs, but their “research” is done to provide more grant money. Scientists are a joke, right along with lawyers and used car salesmen.
And also, BTW, jacketed/copper/brass bullets cause significantly more recoil than lead bullets of the same weight and aren’t safe in maximum loads (i.e., with equal maximum charges) for lead bullets (fact known by capable handloaders). It simply takes more pressure to push them through a barrel.
There is millions of dollars of grants available that these “scientists” live off of.
Exactly, and they and theirs need to be brought out of the darkness into the light of day, even more than they have been.
You can see a pretty good list every time the credits roll on a PBS or National Geographic documentary. For years I have tried to get my wife to STOP her subscription to National geo. I graduated in Geography in the sixties, and Geo was a joke back then.
TMG, Squantos, hiredhand: Do you know what happened to FReeper hopalong?
Yeah, those raptors really have it out for those of us that like guns and hunting.
42 birds tested:
18 birds measured "background" at 0-10 ug/dL
19 birds measured "sub-clinical" at 10-60 ug/dL
2 birds measured "clinical" at 60-100 ug/dL
3 birds measured "acute" at >100 ug/dL
42 birds does not constitute a statistically significant sample.
The designated categories are for humans.
The 19 birds measured "subclinical" were added to the higher levels in order to state: "In all, we found that 58% of the 42 fall migrant Golden Eagles sampled had elevated blood-lead levels."
The analysis and conclusion are admittedly pure speculation:
"We speculate that the five birds (12%) showing at least clinical exposure levels (≥60 μg/dL) had recently ingested lead-tainted carcasses and/or offal piles, likely during migration."
"Eagles with lower, but detectable blood lead levels may have had earlier exposure with the majority of the lead already deposited in other organs and bone."
"We surmise the use of lead-core ammunition for hunting is the major source for lead exposure in Golden Eagles, though we cannot identify a particular source species or region, in part because of the overlapping timing of hunting seasons for various game species in different regions of the Rocky Mountains and the very large area visited by Golden Eagles during migration season."
"We are uncertain whether our preliminary numbers represent the northern migratory population of Golden Eagles as a whole, but a serious threat to the welfare of the species on a landscape level appears plausible."
"We believe an intensive educational outreach campaign and a switch away from lead-containing hunting ammunition to alternative, less toxic materials are appropriate ways to protect these and other scavenging species, as well as human consumers of gun-killed animals."
.
This is pathetic "science" and wouldn't pass muster at any level of credible academia.
See 21.
Right. There are lead mines all over central Montana. I used to live in Helena and the ASARCO smelter in East Helena was one of the largest in the US before it shut down in 2002. Prickly Pear creek’s water was so contaminated with lead and arsenic, it couldn’t even be used to irrigate crops.
Researcher Finds High Mercury Levels In Montana Osprey
Here they're going after the mining industry.
Or it could be from prarie dog hunters.
Here is the answer: depleted uranium
They were able to pull this crap with Condors because they are large buzzards that eat dead animals and therefore could pick up lead by ingesting bullets(and I call BS on that also), but eagles on eat live animals and the odds one of them has any lead pellets or bullets in them is to ridiculous to contemplate.
Just another attempt to regulate ammo and therefore our guns.
Thanks for the info. That was my implication, but I didn’t have the hard evidence you cited. Thanks for that.
Everytime there is an oil spill, I think the same thing, all the ships sunk during WW 2 and oil loss, gee how come we're not up to our arse's in oil world wide..
Only in government are you given an open ended, unfocused task to do.
That doesn't matter! We must BAN LEAD, and BAN IT *NOW*!!!!1!!!!!11!</envirowacko>
I watched this happen in CA.
One in-the-know State Fish & Game Commissioner asked of those pushing for the ban on lead core bullets, related to big game (mainly deer or wild hog)hunting;
The answer was in the affirmative.
The same Commissioner then asked;
Commish; "Then what was the source?"
Answer in part; "Lead tire weights..." with no actual evidence even really suggesting fragmented bullets leaving lead in offal piles or discards that would then have been consumed by Condors. period.
Some months later, like six-eighteen months AFTER this particular in-the-know Commish retired, and another, more-beholden-to-the-greenies politico was appointed, these same "presenters" of evidence, pushing for the lead ban while working for the DF&G and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife and the like, claimed that lead contamination coming from rifle bullets was some sort of epidemic.
What changed in that period of time, other than that one commissioner retiring? No evidence was made to back the claim, nor was the claim challenged in any way.
As far as big game bullets being a problem, that can be addressed through simple practices, close examination of harvested animals, right where they drop, and burial of any trim (BETTER IS TO TRIM LATER) along with burial or removal of offal coming from whichever side of the diaphragm a bullet passed through...if there is any reasonable possibility fragmenting could have entered such portions. (I've taken more than one animal, where such was an outright impossibility, though I have traced some bullet 'turn' thru a carcass, after the projectile hit a rib on the way IN, before passing ALL THE WAY THROUGH.)
For Condors, just pushing the gut pile under thick bushes has been shown to effectively enough keep them from getting at the leavings. But they won't share that info...it's more likely than not buried, at this point.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.