Get the Lead Out

          Golden eagle with Research Director Bryan Bedrosian                Teton Raptor Center

The impact of lead ammunition on raptors is well documented. California has banned the use of lead ammunition completely following extensive experience during the state’s decades long battle to rewild the California condor population. It should also be no surprise that the very nature of lead bullets which fragment on impact might also result in higher levels of lead in the blood of humans whose diets include higher percentages of hunted wild game.

Rescuers carried the once regal golden eagle, now a crippled figure, from Dubois to the Teton Raptor Center in Wilson on Nov. 8, 2018.

Something had slowed her rapid-fire reactions into lethargic, delayed responses. Her noble posture drooped. Once voracious, now she was barely eating. Her legs were weak, claws clenched, her survival full of doubt.

An X-ray scan revealed the cause of her hobbling malady: seven fragments of metal in her gastrointestinal tract.Veterinarians believed she had eaten from the remains of a hunter-killed game animal, shot dead with a lead bullet that broke into small pieces upon impact. Now seven of those toxic fragments were attacking her brain, central nervous system and organs.

Bryan Bedrosian, research director at the Center, also has seen too many birds arrive in distress.

“Every time it’s saddening and frustrating,” he said. Sad because the birds are poisoned into seizures through no fault of their own. Frustrating, because “there’s such an easy effective solution.”

Lead-free ammunition.

Guess who is adamant in their opposition to taking the lead out of ammunition?  The National Rifle Association of course.  They see a ban on lead ammunition as phase one in taking everyone’s guns away.  First they take away your lead bullets, then it’s government gun grabbing goons knocking on your door in the middle of the night.  

What is wrong with these people?