Toxic Lead to Cover Iowa Killing Fields
Aug 26th, 2011 | 16 responses
by WALTER BRASCH
Iowa, which gave us the carnival known as the Iowa Straw Poll and artery-clogging Deep Fried butter, will unleash another health problem, beginning Sept. 1.
The Iowa legislature last year approved a dove hunting season, the first in more than nine decades. However, the state’s Department of Natural Resources and the Natural Resources Commission (DNR) banned the use of lead shot and bullets.
That led to a massive all-out assault by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the U.S. Sportsman’s Alliance (USSA).
In a letter to Gov. Terry Branstad, the NRA underscored its opposition by waving a veiled threat that banning lead ammunition is an “attack [on] our freedoms.”
“Absurd,” replied Robert Johns of the American Bird Conservancy, who explained that “the NRA continues to deliberately miscast the lead-versus-nonlead ammunition issue as an attack on hunting.” There is nothing in the Constitution or in any federal court decision that would prohibit the banning of any specific kind of ammunition.
The NRA blatantly suggested the ban on lead shot “is designed to price hunters out of the market and keep them from taking part in traversing Iowa’s fields and forests.” For its “evidence,” it pointed out the cost of non-toxic ammunition is higher than ammunition made of lead. However, the use of non-toxic shot results in only a 1-2 percent increase in total costs for hunters, according to a study conducted by the National Wildlife Research Centre, certainly not enough to justify the NRA’s paranoid panic that non-toxic bullets will lead to a decrease in hunting.
Iowa’s DNR, the NRA claimed, was echoing not just environmental extremism but “the unscientific battle cry of the anti-hunting extremists.”
Contrary to NRA and USSA statements, there are several hundred scientific studies that conclude that lead shot is a health and environmental danger. Lead can cause behavioral problems, learning disabilities, reduced reproduction, neurological damage, and genetic mutation. For those reasons alone, the U.S. bans lead in gasoline, water pipes, windows, pottery, toys, paint, and hundreds of other items.
“Wildlife is poisoned when animals scavenge on carcasses shot and contaminated with lead-bullet fragments, or pick up and eat spent lead-shot pellets[,]mistaking them for food or grit,” the Center for Biological Diversity points out. As many as 20 million birds and other animals die each year from lead poisoning, says the CBD.
Humans can be poisoned by eating animals that have eaten the pellets from the ground or which have eaten decaying carcasses of birds that have been shot with lead ammunition. Iowa is one of only 15 states that don’t have some regulation that bans lead in shot and ammunition. Most European countries ban the use of lead shot for hunting.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1991 banned the use of lead shot in all waterfowl hunting. The NRA screamed its opposition at that time. However, the ban didn’t lead to a reduction of hunting or hunters, nor did it violate any part of the Constitution.
R.T. Cox, in his column, “The Sage Grouse,” notes that “bird hunters can leave 400,000 pellets per acre of intensely hunted areas.” About 81,000 tons of lead shot are left on shooting ranges each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Part of the reason for so much lead shot on the ground is that doves, which can fly up to 50 miles per hour and make sharp turns, are difficult to hit. While hunters may claim they shoot the birds as a food source, such claims are usually blatant lies meant to hide the reality that the 20 million doves killed each year are nothing more than live targets. The five ounce mourning dove, hit by shot, provides little usable meat. The NRA even advises hunters that for health reasons, they should “cut away a generous portion of meat around the wound channel.”
Lead on the dove killing fields isn’t the only problem. An investigation by the North Dakota Dept. of Health in 2007 revealed that 58 percent of venison donated to food banks by the Safari Club contained lead fragments. A study conducted by the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2006 revealed there were toxic levels of lead in condors. During the past decade, 276 California condors were found to have had lead poisoning; there are fewer than 400 in the state. A ban on lead shot was enacted in 2007.
There are alternatives to using lead. Non-toxic bullets and shot are made from tungsten, copper, and steel, without the negative health problems. While some hunting advocates maintain that lead bullets are significantly better in the field, there is no evidence to suggest that “green” ammunition results in fewer kills.
Nevertheless, disregarding scientific evidence and facing NRA wrath, Branstad said he agreed with a legislative panel’s decision to ignore the findings of the state’s professional wildlife conservationists, who he said exceeded their authority, to restore lead shot hunting.
Andrew Page, a senior director for the Humane Society of the United States, has another opinion, one far more logical than the NRA/NSSA rants: “If hunters are conservationists as they say they are, they should be the first to stand up and say they won’t poison wildlife or the ecosystem.”
[Walter Brasch's latest book is Before the First Snow, a story of America's counterculture as seen through the eyes of a "flower child" and the reporter who covered her life for three decades.]
16 Responses to “Toxic Lead to Cover Iowa Killing Fields”
This kind of decision is easier to understand when you realize that about thirty years ago we decided to go with faith/fantasy based government policies.
Policies based on the way we wished the world was instead of facing the way the world actually is. Policies which run away from reality. Policies that don’t have to prove any effectiveness as long as they reflect our biases, our faith. Policies that re-enforce ignorance rather than reward knowledge. Policies meant to take us back to an innocent, bucolic past that never actually existed. Policies that strangely enough always seem to favor short term commercial interests over all others.
The last one seems most appropriate in this case.
Get the lead out, they shout at soldiers.
That is an order.
Mr. Brasch needs to get his facts straight before implying that Iowa is full of knuckle-dragging, science-denying, anti-progress, comatose idiots doing harm to nature out of spite while we wait for our heart attacks to inevitably strike us down.
First, Iowa is not “one of only 15 states that don’t have some regulation that bans lead in shot and ammunition.” In fact, almost all County, State, and Federal wildlife management areas in Iowa – where the greatest concentration of hunting activity occurs – ban the use of lead shot for all purposes. Of the 38 states that allow dove hunting, Iowa would have been the only one to extend a blanket lead shot ban to all dove hunting, even on private land, had the Natural Resources Commission rule not been delayed. There is no model among more “progressive” states to follow in this regard, so one could argue that Iowa was leading the charge on banning lead just by having the discussion. And, if one feels – as I do – that the lead ban for doves is unjustified and is a lazy, poorly-researched, blunt answer to a very nuanced issue, then that opinion at least falls in line with the other 37 states that allow doves to be hunted.
Second, unless it has been demonstrated that inert lead pellets scattered on the ground can magically take aerosol form and drift into the mouths of sleeping babes in their cribs, it is ridiculous to attempt to make this into a human health issue. Lead exists naturally and plentifully, and can be manipulated, processed, and used safely. Thus it is the most cost-effective material with the necessary combination of physical properties for use in ammunition.
Finally, the research on animal lead poisoning is much less definitive than the media coverage on the issue would suggest. Interpreting the results of studies needs to be done with knowledge of the biology, habitat, and habits of the creatures in questions before calling for a policy solution – something that articles like this one fail to do (by the way, no studies were specifically cited in this article despite referencing a huge body of research that supposedly definitively identifies lead poisoning deaths on a grand scale and presumes lead ammunition as the culprit). Policy solutions, without fail, sacrifice precision for ease of enforcement, and the lead ban on doves in Iowa would have done exactly that.
Is the attempted lead ban for doves an attack on hunting and gun ownership? It is. Whether it is intentional and orchestrated, I don’t know. But the effect is the same. One would have to be a shotgunner to understand the ballistics of lower-performing “non-toxic” shot — how it increases discomfort from recoil for beginning shooters, how it prices some people out of the sport, how it makes a good deal of guns – many of which are passed down from generation to generation – obsolete, and most importantly – how it does its job poorly. Yes, hunters are out to kill. To kill quickly and cleanly. We are not unfeeling, even in Iowa. When new policy makes an activity more expensive, less appealing to beginners, devoid of heritage, and more distasteful (in this case through wounded, lost, and suffering animals), all without clear benefit and lacking insightful solution-seeking from the policy makers, then yes, that policy is an attack.
By the way, I wish everyone reporting or commenting on this issue would take the time to learn the difference between lead pellets — shot — and bullets. They are not the same thing, and using the terms interchangeably destroys the credibility of the reporter/commenter with the hunting and shooting public. Just a helpful tip for those who really hope to influence the very large community of shooters and hunters rather than just criticize it.
Amsteele..excellent post. But I doubt anyone on the fringe of this issue on either side would agree since it is has too much common sense stated in the post.
Too bad journalist, politicians and advocates for positions don’t take the time to understand the facts and not just talking points.
Amsteele, you seem to be well informed on this issue, perhaps you can answer some questions.
What is the substitute for lead, does it have the same trajectory, velocity, stopping power,etc, and what is the cost differential for a day’s hunting.
Do animals ingest the shot or spit it out?
AMSteele. Great great points. That post should be sent to every Iowa legislator.
A few more things I’d like to add. I love the 1 to 2 % increase sentence. It’s so misleading. That’s like saying if the price of gasoline doubles the cost of driving only goes up 1%. Figure in the cost of my gun, my boat, my license, my clothing and my decoys, etc. Sure when shells double it’s a small percentage increase of the overall cost of hunting.
Finally to give a small personal experience to build on the previous post. I have a Winchester Model 12 that has been passed down through the generations. I hunt pheasants in Iowa on public land where there is a non toxic requirement. Steel is not an option in this older gun as it can damage the barrel. There are other options though. The more expensive non tox like tungsten is very similar to lead in performance, it shares leads softness and wonn’t hard the barrel. I can buy a box of 25 lead shells for about $8. Or roughly $.33 every time I pull the trigger. I can buy steel for about $16 a box, which will ruin my barrel and wound a tough bird like a pheasant. Or, for $40 for a impossible to find have to ship to my door and pay shipping I can buy a box of 10 tungsten shells. So, if I want to legally shoot pheasants, if I want to not damage my barrel, and if I want to provide a clean kill to a distinguished game bird, I can do so for the cost of $4 every time I pull the trigger (A mere 1% increase over the $.33)
Yea the 1-2% thing is misleading, especially when you consider it changes based on how much you actually fire the gun, which those who go to practice ranges usually do much more frequently. The cost of going to a range is largely affected by the cost of the ammo you use. Which is why I practice with a .22 instead of a .45 at the pistol range.
That being said I do believe the non-lead shells are not that big an impact on accuracy or effectiveness. I’m not the most avid hunter but when I do go, dove is my favorite precisely because they do offer a tough shot. You hit a dove on the wing you can be proud of your marksmanship. I consider the issue of the non toxic stuff as ineffective to be a false argument. But that’s just my personal experience, and I’m a pretty good shot.
Also I take exception to the claim that dove don’t provide meat. The pellets spread out and don’t completely shred the bird like some people might think. You go out, hunt your limit, then cook them up for lunch, then hunt your limit again. They are fairly easy to clean, and very tasty I find even if you aren’t an expert cook. I have never personally met any fellow hunter that shoots game animals for fun and just leaves them there to rot. Even some of the guys I’ve met who predominately shoot because they like to shoot things don’t do that. But maybe that’s just because I live in super liberal CA, I haven’t met anyone from Iowa who hunts.
Basically, I agree that lead free shot isn’t that hard to implement, and I don’t like the idea of lead being sprayed into areas where we hunt. Those areas need to be taken care of and managed well in order to stay both pristine as possible and a source of hunting. Its not too much to ask. But I do not like the idea of hunters being portrayed as a bunch of hooligans just out shooting up the landscape. Every hunter I have met has a strong conservationist streak in them.
dduck,
I’ll try to answer your questions. Keep in mind that I only claim to be an informed hunter, shooter, and conservationist and not a wildlife biologist or ballistics expert.
The primary “non-toxic” substitute for lead is steel. While ammo companies have made strides toward producing better and cheaper steel ammunition, there are certain physical properties that just can’t be overcome. Steel is much less dense than lead. Thus, it loses energy much more quickly when fired from a gun. Trajectory is affected in that the steel pellets take longer to reach their destination and therefore have more time for gravity to affect them. But, the biggest problem is the loss of downrange energy due to steel’s low density. Downrange energy transferred to the bird through many simultaneous pellet strikes is what kills birds cleanly. To compensate, ammo manufacturers have added more powder (the “fuel” that accelerates the pellets) to steel shotshells to increase velocity. This increases recoil and discomfort for the shooter, something that can be very discouraging for new and young shooters. Another option for maintaining downrange energy is to increase the size of the pellets used. Both approaches, whether increased shot size or increased powder (and other steel-specific components)reduce the number of pellets that can fit in a shotshell. Fewer pellets generally equals fewer solid hits.
The best option for the adult/experienced shooter required to use steel is to use a bigger (in shotshell gauge) gun. But younger or novice shooters – the ones who most need to have early success and positive experiences are left with no alternative but to get beat up by recoil, miss more often, and probably cripple more game. Indeed, the smaller gauge guns that in the past have made great first guns are rendered nearly obsolete by the limitations of steel. As a final kicker, steel is much harder than lead so it expands less on impact (again reducing effectiveness) and can ruin the barrels of older guns.
In my part of the world, the lowest quality steel ammunition approaches the price of the highest quality lead ammunition (keep in mind that low quality means low performance, which means greater crippling loss). Let’s just go with: lead = $.28 per shell, steel = $.48 per shell, bismuth/tungsten and other exotic alloys = $2-$3 per shell. Yes, $3 every time you pull the trigger. These latter metals are about the ballistic equal to lead, but consider that the national average on doves is somewhere around five shells for every dove bagged. A 10-15 bird limit on doves makes hunting them an expensive pastime at that rate.
As for animals picking up shot, it happens. Many bird species ingest grit to aid in food digestion, and a pellet probably looks like any other piece of gravel to a bird. But, one needs to understand the scale of the areas hunted for the many different species, their unique habits, and relative likelihood that any particular species is going to find a tiny pellet buried in vegetation amidst millions and millions of acres of land. In the case of doves specifically, the bird is the most prolific and most abundant of any game bird. We’ve been using lead shot to hunt them in the U.S. since shotguns first became available. What have been the population-level impacts of hunting with lead?
In the case of large game, though I don’t hunt it, it seems reasonable that meat eating birds may ingest bullet fragments in the gut piles of animals harvested and field-dressed by hunters. But, are most of these bird populations in decline? No, quite the opposite. In the case of the California condor, of which only a few remain, is even one loss to lead poisoning too many? Yes, but the vast majority of the U.S. is nowhere near the condor’s historic range. And, wouldn’t a more reasonable and precise policy deal with the disposal of the gut piles rather than spark a nation-wide vilification of lead ammunition for all species in all cases?
One more comment…
I often hear non-hunters say that hunting doves is just target practice, implying that they are left to decay on the ground. As others here have pointed out, that’s just nonsense. One would have to have experienced such a thing while actually hunting doves in order to legitimately make that claim, and I don’t think Mr. Brasch has.
I spend a lot of time and money keeping and training a dog to make sure that every dove I shoot makes it to the grill – even the ones that were hard to find because they were crippled by steel shot.
Thanks, Amsteele.
Not much hunting here in NYC, so it’s hard for us to understand a hunter’s perspective, but I try, just like I try to understand TPers. just a joke.
@amstele
I think your physics is wrong on this sir. It is a momentum and energy problem, not density. For killing power, would you want to be stuck by a semi at 60MPH or a MiniCooper at 60MPR? With lead shot being more dense(and heavier mass)than steel or tungsten-nickel iron at the same MV(say 1200 fps), the lead has a higher kinetic energy and more killing or destructive power. Shot 12 gauge as a young whipper snapper at clay pigeons and remember the kick of a magnum load. Man up and throw away your 2-3/4 lead shells for 3-1/2 steel magnum shells!!!
http://www.chuckhawks.com/12gauge.htm
This second link also goes into KE and velocity.
http://www.frfrogspad.com/miscellj.htm
Maybe you should just load your own SG shells and replace lead(Pb) with depleted uranium.
From Wiki:
Nor for real killing power, use gold or tungsten shot over that effeminate lead…
Hope you eat your dove kill. Here are some tasty recipes.
http://honest-food.net/wild-game/dove-pigeon-recipes/
rudi,
Don’t want to turn this discussion into a debate about ballistics, but is it not lead’s density that allows a greater mass of pellets to fit into the same size shell than would be possible with steel? Doesn’t more mass hold more energy longer than less mass started at the same velocity? You can choose to divide the extra mass into more small pellets or fewer big pellets, but each pellet is still more massive than the same size steel pellet, and there’s more of them.
I love the Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook blog that you mentioned at honest-food.net, by the way.
amstele I did the gun thing in my youth. Couldn’t hit the side of a barn or a bird in flight with either lead or steel shot.
Shot size is standard, regardless of material used. A good hunter, using a 12 gauge, with practice will bag more birds with steel shot than the weekend hunter. The weekend hunter using his expensive 16 or 20 gauge is using the hunt for an excuse to get out of the house. The weekend hunter will also spray “tons” of lead after the bird is out of a reasonable range regardless of shot.
Don’t get me started on deer hunters with flasks of liquor and cell phones in the woods…
Ballistics is fascinating and any firearms enthusiast should have some level of interest in it. Reloaders like myself need to know even more. Fact is, doves aren’t that hard to kill and the diff between steel or lead shot in that application is hardly a deal breaker. There are certainly far more important things for people to jump up and down about. As for dove hunting in general, I’m against it. You need to draw the line somewhere and the Mourning Dove is a song bird. What’s next? Robins? Cardinals? Orioles? Those birds all used to be fair game at one time, but wiser heads prevailed. Let’s try sticking with the wiser heads please. There is no shortage of hunting opportunities as it is, regardless of what fools from the NRA would try to have you believe.