Posted on 06/26/2012 5:44:18 AM PDT by Zakeet
New research from environmental toxicologists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows that California condors are exposed to harmful levels of lead regularly. The main source of this being from ingesting lead ammunition. This continual exposure to lead is preventing the condor’s recovery — if it wasn’t for condor recovery programs, this issue would have already led to the bird’s extinction.
The new findings are reported in a paper to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Study author Myra Finkelstein, a research toxicologist at UC Santa Cruz, said that the research makes it clear that without a permanent solution to the problem of lead poisoning, “the condor population can only be sustained through intensive and costly management efforts.”
“We will never have a self-sustaining wild condor population if we don’t solve this problem,” she said. “Currently, California condors are tagged and monitored, trapped twice a year for blood tests, and when necessary treated for lead poisoning in veterinary hospitals, and they still die from lead poisoning on a regular basis.”
(Excerpt) Read more at planetsave.com ...
There is only one solution to this problem ... and you gun nuts ain't going to like it!
Bull crap
BS
Oh baloney!
The lead poisoning is being caused by global warming...
Nice try commie. Ain’t gonna work.
Just how is it that the condor’s diet is so rich in lead? Do they purposely seek out expended bullets? Do they only eat rodents previously shot with lead projectiles? Do they live where there’s alot of lead dust in the air?
Seriously... how does this happen?
Nice try commie. Ain’t gonna work.
Another push to ban lead in ammunition. But just where is all of this hunting going on in California?
What do Californians hunt, and when is that season?
Do these enviro nuts not realize that question will be asked? The condors have to have a source of lead first. That would be from animals shot by hunters and then left for dead, which hunters do not do.
These extremists are foolish enough to believe their “study” will be widely accepted without question.
Fortunately things don’t work that way.
Hh, no - wait.
Unethical hunters go into the wild, shoot anything and everything that moves and then leaves the carcasses for the condors to eat.
OK - I get it.
What about the populations of other large birds ?
Lead has been used for over a hundred years, fired at migratory water fowl over lakes, rivers and streams. The lead sinks to the bottom of the lake, river or stream, and stays put. Why don’t we see elevated lead rates in our drinking water from these lakes, rivers and streams? Certainly our drinking water would be adversely affected, right?
The lead in ammo is solid, it’s not a powder, it’s not a liquid - it’s a solid mass that will pass through the gut and be expelled along with other indigestable matter. Just like lead in solder, it’s chemically bound - it’s not a free radical.
This doesn't pass the smell test, and is clearly a statistic thrown in to force a "total ban" on lead ammunition.
This means that greater regulation of lead-based ammunition will be necessary to protect condors. Alternatives to lead ammunition are widely available, but regulations to limit the use of lead ammunition are opposed by most hunting organizations and ‘gun-rights’ groups.
And there it is, but I'm wondering why gun-rights is in quotes. The obvious reason is to call it into question.
It’s interesting to note that the ‘Californian’ condor was widespread throughout North America only 10,000 years ago, and throughout all of the Americas before that.
10,000 years ago. Long before lead ammunition arrived. Perhaps the demise of large ice-age mammals has been the downfall of the condor.
The two idiots pictured above have fecal matter in their heads which constitutes their out look on life....and America...what used to be.
And all this time I thought it was the windmills that were chopping up the condors.
“There have been efforts to solve the problem of lead exposure in California — state regulations now ban the use of lead ammunition in condor habitat. There was a partial ban that began in July 2008 and was then expanded. So far, researchers haven’t found any evidence that the ban has resulted in a the blood lead levels of condors being reduced.”
According to the article, the lead in birds traces back to ammo. But if you eliminate the ammo and the birds still get leaded, seems to me something in the initial hypothesis is wrong.
In my experience with lead absorption- the battery business- time flushes lead out of the system. If these birds have a constant diet of lead, seems like every picture you take of condor feeding would include a leaded carcass.
Sounds like BS to me.
Some Democrat’s sister needs a job. She’ll be looking for lead in condor crap at $130,000 a year.
Maybe the birds are finding old buildings and licking the paint? If they have increased lead in their systems, there must be other causes than "ammo".
Guess I need to start breeding condors and selling them to gun ranges...
Those mugs look like a couple of mean buzzards.
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