Quote:
Originally Posted by King Brown
Kensal, provide sources recent research and save me worrying, please. I killed a couple skunks with the .22 last week and went to work on the property. When I came back to dispose of them a bald eagle lifted powerfully with a skunk in its claws. I'm one of the idiots who believe lead in the diet isn't good. I'm leery that all the anti-lead papers were written by liberals!
PS---Following Sherman Bell's injunction of finding out for myself, I googled "ingested lead and raptors." Every source, state and federal, cited mortality from ingested lead in raptors in Arizona, Virginia, California, Minnesota, Montana, France, Spain, including "death from one lead shot" in bald eagles. I'll leave to you the identity of which sources are liberal or conservative but I'm a new convert until shown evidence otherwise.
Regards, King
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The use of lead shot is irrelevant to the recovery of the bald eagle population. One simply has to look at the numbers put out by the U.S. fish and wildlife regarding the bald eagle population. Unfortunately, I can not link to the data page since the USFW webpage is down due to the government shutdown, but it is easy enough to check out once it is back up.
Bald eagles are thriving, and the population has been steadily increasing since the ban of DDT in 1972. In fact, if I really wanted to throw a wrench in your argument, I would point out that the RATE of increase in the bald eagle population has actually gone DOWN since the ban of lead shot for migratory waterfowl was put into place in 1991. I don't want you to believe me though, check out the numbers for yourself. Having someone tell you you are wrong does not change opinions, coming to that conclusion on your own, by doing your own research is the only way that change takes place.
The only relevant data in this entire issue is the annual population count of bald eagles. You will find the use (or ban) of lead shot is statistically irrelevant to the change in those numbers.
The bald eagle is continued to be used as a reason to ban lead shot because the activists know that is a sympathetic symbol that can sway public opinion, regardless of what the facts actually say. The use of individual, isolated cases of a raptor ingesting lead shot is used to build an argument to ban all lead shot, even though those cases are statistically irrelevant. They are used instead to make an emotional argument.
Here is the link to the U.S. fish and wildlife data, once the government is back up:
http://www.fws.gov/midwest/eagle/pop.../chtofprs.html