Lead Ban Chronicles - Anti-lead Propaganda or Solid Science?
In my RSS feeds the other day, I stumbled across this article by David Malakof in the ScienceNOW Daily News. In the article, Malakof describes the condor recovery efforts as successful, but then turns around and basically describes what any other normal person would consider abject failure.
Confusing? Read the article.
Malakof is citing a recent report presented by the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU), in which the current state of the condor recovery program is examined. In the review, the authors suggest that the program is at a success because there are now 150 condors flying at large in their historic range.
But the program is also a failure according to the article and review, because these birds can’t survive without human intervention. The report says that, currently, the existing condor population is little more than a zoo animal in the wild that can’t survive without expensive interaction with its “handlers”. The “wild” population hasn’t been restored. The captive population has just been given a bigger cage.
All of this, of course, doesn’t come as a very shocking contradiction considering the fact that scientists can never agree on anything. In fact, I agree with the findings that the program has not achieved anything except to spend a lot of money to maintain free-flying zoo animals. And in order to keep that population flying, they’ll have to spend a lot more money.
But, here’s where I wonder if someone’s trying to throw a blanket over the heads of hunters and shooters across the west… according to the review, the sole thing that will save the condors is the removal of lead ammunition.
Any discussion of the condor program must begin with the issue of lead. A basic tenet of conservation biology is that reintroductions will inevitably fail if the factors that caused the species to decline in the first place have not been addressed (Meretsky et al. 2000). It is now apparent that the reintroduction of condors illustrates this principle, lead exposure being the recurring factor. Habitat loss and direct persecution through shooting and poisoning of carcasses surely were involved in the decline of the condor through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century (Snyder 2007), but there is compelling evidence that elevated mortality due to lead poisoning was a major cause of continuing decline at the time the birds were brought into captivity (Meretsky et al. 2000; Snyder 2007). Although just a few years ago there was debate about the significance and source of lead exposure in reintroduced condors (Beissinger 2002;Riseborough 2002), there is now widespread consensus and overwhelming evidence that poisoning due to ingestion of spent lead ammunition in carcasses and gut piles currently precludes the establishment of viable populations in the wild (Cade 2007).
Is this really widespread consensus, or is it an agenda showing its ugly face? I dunno, but here’s part of their conclusion:
We are convinced that condor recovery cannot be achieved unless exposure to lead from ingesting spent ammunition while feeding on carcasses and gut piles is eliminated. We conclude that as long as lead ammunition is available,even with excellent compliance voluntary programs promoting the use of non-lead ammunition are unlikely to reduce lethal exposure to lead sufficiently to enable condor populations to be selfsustaining. Similarly, the efficacy of area-specific requirements for non-lead ammunition such as the local regulations on the Tejon Ranch or even the state regulations in California remains extremely uncertain. We therefore conclude that total replacement of lead with non-toxic ammunition at least within the potential range of the condor, and preferably nationally, is necessary (but perhaps not sufficient) for condor recovery. We recommend that USFWS work with ammunition manufactures, state game agencies, and shooting and hunting organizations to spearhead an effort to replace lead ammunition with non-lead alternative ammunitions nationally or at least within the potential range of the condor. The program requires national leadership from USFWS on this issue, but state wildlife agencies must be full partners in this effort because of their jurisdiction over hunting regulations.
Now, in the interest of fairness, the review also cites the ongoing feeding program and association of humans with food as parts of the problem. The report does recommend moving feeding programs further from human habitation, as well as changing the program to encourage more wild foraging. The report also suggests that the response to this call for a lead ban NOT BE ONE THAT DIMINISHES HUNTING, BECAUSE THE CONDORS NEED MORE CARCASSES TO EAT. It paints a picture of a strange, and conflicting symbiosis, doesn’t it?
Elimination of lead ammunition should not be accomplished by a reduction in hunting, but rather by replacement of lead ammunition with non-lead alternatives. Hunters are the dominant predators in most of the condor’s range, and dead animals and gut piles left by hunters provide important food sources for condors. It is essential that hunters continue to harvest deer, pigs and other wildlife throughout the condor range using non-lead ammunition, so that a clean source of wild food is available to condors beyond food subsidies. This is the only way that condors will be able to be sustained in the wild after food subsidies are reduced. Therefore eliminating the threat of lead must be accomplished while simultaneously promoting sport hunting for large game and depredation hunting for feral pigs. The campaign to convert the hunting community from lead to non-lead ammunition should include increased awareness of that community’s important role in condor recovery as a critical source of the condor’s food supply.
Throughout the discussion of lead ammo, the review does cite the issue that other carrion feeding birds are also being exposed to lead fragments, which of course gives some weight to their argument for an all-out lead ammo ban. They even manage to stick in a jab at the possibility that lead fragments are a risk to humans. For a report that’s supposed to be about the viability of the condor program, this thing sure does swing wide afield.
Regardless the agenda, or lack thereof, the review makes a pretty compelling case in light of the fact that it’s being presented as scientific research and the current hysteria that’s already surrounding lead ammo. This thing has traction, and hunters as well as target shooters should really be paying attention.
Is the condor going to survive over time? Personally, I doubt it…lead or no lead. From the tone of the review, I don’t think the AOU folks really believe it either. Let’s just repeat a key statement from the report:
We therefore conclude that total replacement of lead with non-toxic ammunition at least within the potential range of the condor, and preferably nationally, is necessary (but perhaps not sufficient) for condor recovery.
But it’s pretty obvious that the condor isn’t the real issue here.
I’ve said before and still believe, that getting the lead out is not a bad idea. But pushing too hard and too fast, as California has done, is the wrong way to go about it… simply throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It puts the onus on the hunters, and we are the very ones who have the least ability to effect this change. Let’s get the ammo makers to step up, and get the government to provide some positive support. If this is, as the Peregrine Fund and Audubon researchers suggest, a much larger environmental and health issue, then it seems justified that government funding would be available to research and develop lead-alternatives.
Anyway, enough about what I think…
Read the AOU review. Yeah, it’s long and full of big words, but it’s important to know what they’re saying in order to determine where you stand. Inform yourself. Then let me know what you think.
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December 21st, 2008 at 6:26 pm