Question:
> < Our Canadian neighbors have never bought the inflated estimate > <of lead poisoning deaths in waterfowl populations. The only reason we > <have universal non-toxic requirements for waterfowl hunting is because > <of politics and a lawsuit. >I agree with the last statement; it just goes to show that politics is >not always a dirty word, and lawsuits can actually do some *good* once >in a while. In this case, the lawsuit forced measures into place to >save the North American duck population, against the bitter >protestations of waterfowlers who would rather see the duck population >slowly poisoned away than pay an extra $5 for a box of shotgun shells.
Oh come on! Do you honestly believe that waterfowl populations were being "slowly poisoned away"? Lead poisoning is true as life, and it kills ducks, but it was never a major direct mortality factor. Bellrose’s estimate of 3 million was a mathematical extrapolation from areas with known lead poisoning problems. The number is not valid, and no evidence of the problem getting worse could be found in 20 years of intensive study. Far more ducks are killed by disease. And of course, the largest single source of duck mortality is duck hunting. An interesting finding was that lead-ingestion rates from hunter-killed duck samples was much higher than samples collected by night-lighting or gill-nets, suggesting that lead poisoned ducks are more susceptible to hunters and are harvested at a higher rate. In other words, hunters may harvest lead poisoned ducks (not harmful to eat) sparing healthy ducks. Converting to non-toxic shot was an easy fix, something everyone could understand and rally behind whether it did any good or not. Lead poisoning still kills birds in those "hotspots" every year, but do we hear about it? No, it’s not politically beneficial. And does steel cripple more birds than lead? The Lacassine study (the only one that measured cripples/bird hit rather than cripples/shot fired) showed that it does, but concluded it wasn’t a problem because hunters hit fewer birds with steel and thus the total number of cripples left in the marsh was actually the same. Well, now that hunters have shot steel for over 5 years minimum, are we hitting more and thus crippling more birds than with lead? Probably. So far a while at least, there are likely more dead ducks (increased cripples plus lead poisoned) than before steel-shot regulations. Try to find a study quantifying that politically incorrect but certainly likely hypothesis! But it will get better as ducks or natural processes clean up the lead, steel shot shooters get more conscientious about crippling, and better non-toxic shot is developed. As I stated earlier, I strongly support conversion to non-toxic shot. However I find both the whining about use of non-toxic shot and the statement that banning lead shot saved our waterfowl, dreadfully naive. Larry
Response:
> Oh come on! Do you honestly believe that waterfowl populations were > being "slowly poisoned away"?
Yes. > Lead poisoning is true as life, and it > kills ducks, but it was never a major direct mortality factor.
I don’t know what you consider "major", or "direct". In any case, supposing it is a *minor*, *indirect* mortality factor, it still justifies a universal non-toxic requirement. > The Lacassine study (the only one that > measured cripples/bird hit rather than cripples/shot fired) showed that > it does, but concluded it wasn’t a problem because hunters hit fewer > birds with steel and thus the total number of cripples left in the marsh > was actually the same. Well, now that hunters have shot steel for over 5 > years minimum, are we hitting more and thus crippling more birds than > with lead? Probably. So far a while at least, there are likely more > dead ducks (increased cripples plus lead poisoned) than before steel-shot > regulations. Try to find a study quantifying that politically incorrect > but certainly likely hypothesis! But it will get better as ducks or > natural processes clean up the lead, steel shot shooters get more > conscientious about crippling, and better non-toxic shot is developed.
Bravo. The last sentence above sounds to me like a vindication of the non-toxic requirement. The Lacassine study is not the only one to record cripples per hit. Smith and Roster, USFWS, 1979 report birds crippled per bird bagged, and find numbers for steel similar to Lacassine, but migher rates for lead than Lacassine reported. Their overall lead crippling rates are higher than for steel. One single study doesn’t mean squat. Crippling rates for lead and steel are not different enough to justify any arguments against non-toxic shot. You can trot out one report that supports your argument, and the next one might just as well refute it. The fact that the removal of lead shot from wetlands where ducks feed is better for waterfowl is irrefutable. > As I stated earlier, I strongly support conversion to non-toxic > shot. However I find both the whining about use of non-toxic shot and > the statement that banning lead shot saved our waterfowl, dreadfully > naive.
Yeah, yeah. The only whining I hear comes from waterfowlers either too chinzy to pay for steel shot, or too greedy to let their birds come into range before they open up on them. Ed Clayton Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Response:
>> Oh come on! Do you honestly believe that waterfowl populations were > being "slowly poisoned away"? >Yes.
If you mean waterfowl that get lead poisoning die slowly, then you are correct. If you mean that lead poisoning was slowly leading to the end of our waterfowl populations, then you are way off the mark and have no data to back your contention. For lead poisoning to lead to the demise of our watefowl populations, it would have had to have been getting worse. But there is no evidence of that from the intensive surveys of lead poisoning done to find the "hotspots". > The Lacassine study (the only one that measured cripples/bird hit >rather than cripples/shot fired) showed that it does, but concluded it >wasn’t a problem because hunters hit fewer birds with steel and thus >the total number of cripples left in the marsh was actually the same. >Well, now that hunters have shot steel for over 5 years minimum, are we >hitting more and thus crippling more birds than with lead? Probably. >So far a while at least, there are likely more dead ducks (increased >cripples plus lead poisoned) than before steel-shot regulations. Try >to find a study quantifying that politically incorrect but certainly >likely hypothesis! But it will get better as ducks or natural >processes clean up the lead, steel shot shooters get more conscientious >about crippling, and better non-toxic shot is developed. >Bravo. The last sentence above sounds to me like a vindication of the >non-toxic requirement.
The last sentence was intended to be psuedo-sarcastic because it illustrates the whole problem with your perception. If a biologist goes out and picks up one lead pellet every year, the situation will get better, right? It will take forever and depends on everyone following existing non-toxic rules, but it will get better. So I ask you, how long will it be before non-toxic regualtions stops ducks from dying of lead poisoning, knowing that in many areas the number of lead pellets is over 200,000 per acre? My beef is not with implementation of non-toxic regulations, it is with people like you, and many others that think "we passed a law, the problem is solved" without any evaluation afterwards. This is a classic example. When I came to LSU for my PhD work, I was interested in a couple of questions regarding non-toxic regulations (my boss is one of the authors of the Lacassine study). First, I wanted to know if after hunters gained familiarity with steel, would crippling rates increase because of the nature of the shot, or would hunters adjust their hunting such that crippling would remain the same. Second, I wondered how effective non-toxic shot regs would be at reducing lead poisoning. I realized that lead will be available in some spots for a very long time, but I was interested in the effect on agricultural areas where shot is annually tilled under. But guess what? The feds don’t want the answers to those questions. But what if it shows that hunters are responsible and crippling has not increased, and what if it shows non-toxic regs really reduced the incidence of lead poisoning? Not worth the risk of showing the opposite, they say. Evaluating the effects just isn’t important. But what does increased crippling mean roughly? The USFWS adds a crippled duck lost to every 4 ducks bagged to estimate the total harvest. So lets say that from the data above, steel cripples 10% more waterfowl than lead. Last season we killed about 12 million ducks (9.6 million bagged, 2.4 million crippled and lost). Assuming everyone used steel shot, and it crippled 10% more ducks than lead, then approximately 220,000 MORE ducks were crippled and lost due to non-toxic shot regulations. So, we still have lots of lead for lead poisoning (and we have no idea how long it’s going to take or how many ducks will die "cleaning it up"), and we’ve added 220,000 cripples to the tally UNLESS hunters have adjusted their shooting to make up for steel’s shortcomings (which we are not politically interested enough to study). >The Lacassine study is not the only one to record cripples per hit. >Smith and Roster, USFWS, 1979 report birds crippled per bird bagged, >and find numbers for steel similar to Lacassine, but migher rates >for lead than Lacassine reported. Their overall lead crippling rates >are higher than for steel.
I don’t know where you get your numbers, but Smith and Roster (1979) was a field-shooting experiment at Tule Lake that found steel crippled 6.6% MORE than lead. In fields, effects of crippling are reduced because of the large open area for cripples to be found as opposed to the Lacassine study where marsh vegetation makes it more likely to lose cripples and thus steel crippled 14.3% more than lead. And Smith and Roster (1979) did not report cripples per bird hit but cripples per bird bagged as you said. It is different. Let me explain. When doing these studies, your experimental unit is the hunter or the blind. Each data point is the performance of a hunter or a blind. If a hunter cripples 1 duck and bags none then you have no data because you can’t divide by zero. So you have 2 choices: 1) combine data from more than 1 hunter which means your data are weighted toward the hunters that bagged more birds or 2) you throw away that hunters performance. Either way biases your data. A better way is to count the cripples/shots fired, but this assumes that hunters shoot the same with both steel and lead, which we know is not true. Shooting and missing means more shots fired with less cripples and again, biased data. The best way, and only unbiased way to date, is to analyse the cripples/bird hit. >One single study doesn’t mean squat. Crippling rates for lead and steel >are not different enough to justify any arguments against non-toxic >shot. You can trot out one report that supports your argument, and the >next one might just as well refute it. The fact that the removal of >lead shot from wetlands where ducks feed is better for waterfowl is >irrefutable.
First of all, 1 study done correctly is worth all the others done incorrectly, and can add remarkably to our understanding. Science is not an election, the numbers of studies supporting a point does not count. And what if removing lead from an environment renders it unusable for waterfowl. You are certainly familiar with Catahoula lake. It provides food-rich habitat for over 400,000 ducks in most years, but has a lead poisoning problem. Preliminary studies show that removing the lead (removing the top 6-8 inches of lakebed) will render the lake incapable of producing waterfowl foods for an as yet, unknown period of time, and the resulting habitat is unpredictable. Every year a few thousand (the worst year was about 35,000) ducks die of lead poisoning. Is it irrefutable that removing the lead is better than suffering the losses? And we will suffer these losses for many, many, many years even just from existing lead. And of course, we haven’t even discussed compliance rates. Just a little data from Illinois (Havera et al. 1994) where 38% of the geese checked at Public Hunting Areas and private goose pickers had been shot with lead shot. >Yeah, yeah. The only whining I hear comes from waterfowlers either >too chinzy to pay for steel shot, or too greedy to let their birds come >into range before they open up on them.
I agree. Larry Reynolds School of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Response:
>Yes, all else being equal, I’d pick lead. But all else isn’t equal. >Steel can be used to satisfactory effect, even if that means letting >your birds come in a little closer or just practicing more with steel. >As the previous poster pointed out, crippling rates are going down as >hunters learn to shoot better with steel.
No, that is not what the "previous poster" said. Past studies show that 1) steel cripples MORE per birds hit, but 2) hunter hit FEWER birds with steel than lead, thus the SAME number of total cripples were left in the marsh. Now that we have shot steel for at least 5 years, hunters are probably more familiar with steel and thus now hit the same number of birds with steel as they did with lead. But because steel cripples more per hit, then we are now crippling MORE birds with steel than we used to because we are now hitting MORE birds. The other possible scenario is that hunters have become more responsible, and because steel cripples more of the birds hit, they wait for better, closer shots, and thus cripples with steel may be even LESS than with lead. The first case requires the assumption that hunters are becoming better shots with steel as they use it. The second case requires that hunters change their attitude and hunting behavior. I’m betting the first assumption is far more likely, but data have not been collected to support/refute either hypothesis. Larry
Response:
>Yeah, yeah. The only whining I hear comes from waterfowlers either >too chinzy to pay for steel shot, or too greedy to let their birds come >into range before they open up on them.
While I agree with your sentiments about waterfowlers who blame steel for losing cripples, I think this paragraph in general is inaccurate, and unnecessarily offensive. First, do the studies you’ve read distinguish between permanent wetlands, like you have in Louisiana, and seasonal ones, like we have in the California Desert? The studies I’ve read make this distinction. Lead is not dangerous if it is not allowed to build up in the topsoil. Second, do you agree that lead is more effective and cheaper than steel? That if there was no difference in the environmental affect that lead would be the shot of choice? I know that, all else being equal, I’d pick lead every time. Third, at what point do you draw the line? One bird per refuge per season is too many? One percent? What cost do you expect us to pay in order to reduce our affect on the environment? I can quantify this for you. The seasonal cost of license, tags and access is over $140 in CA, and we are forced to pay an extra $60 per season for ammo which is less efficient, and which will not save a single bird. Do you still want to call this "whining"? Rather than make offensive remarks like this, maybe you should do your homework.
Response:
