lead shot/bullets

[catman71]

forgive me if this sounds stupid but why do people have lead filters and test for lead in water, scrape off old lead paint and otherwise worry about lead poisioning in children, and never mention lead exposure risk from game killed with lead shot or bullets? I saw a story on the news about eagles dying from lead poisioning after eating slug-killed deer carcasses. Is this even an issue? Can someone shed any light on this? Thanks. Perhaps it's all steel shot and BARNES X bullets from now on?

[Nova]

I find that somewhat hard to believe. In order to get lead posioning you have to ingest lead. If you shoot a deer the bullet doesn't instantly get into their blood stream and into the meat. If you eat a venison steak with the slug in it you may have an issue, but you have to be a goofball to do that. As for eagles to be dying by eating it someone must have really filled that deer with lead and the deer lived for a while with the slugs in it. Doesn't sound realistic.

[Gissert]

The eagles probably eat lead fragments that a human will spit out. I would bet that the number of eagles killed with lead poison is miniscule in comparison with other causes of death.

I prefer Barnes X bullets for my big game hunting, but not because they are lead free. They flat out do the job, but so do Nosler Partitions.

[Ufatz]

Over the past twenty years or so there has been a lot of totally bogus nonsense published regarding lead shot and bullets. Sounds like this is another figment of some earth muffins imagination.

My guess is that the number of ducks saved by switching to steel shot still does not equal what they NET in countries to the south of us in ONE week.

And in we have "saved" so many birds with the switch....where are they? HA!?

[Nova]

Uftaz, good point, but I think I have the answer. All those ducks that are not dying from lead are now dying about 300 yards away after the steel blew right through them and you didn't even know you hit them. I'd like to see the comparison from how many died of lead poison and how many crips were lost due to steel. I've had ducks fly off like they are not even hit and get half way across the lake then fold up like a paper bag. Go out and pick them up and they have several holes all the way through....kinda scary.

[catman71]

good points guys. I didn't really know anything about this so i thought it was worth a little discussion.

Thanks everyone.

[lawdog]

Quote:

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good points guys. I didn't really know anything about this so i thought it was worth a little discussion.

Thanks everyone.

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And here I thought this thread was just Trolling...

[catman71]

what is Trolling? I just thought if it posed any threat to my kids to feed them venison and I had the option to switch to all copper, why wouldn't I?

[Nova]

Catman, I hear you, but I really wouldn't worry about it. We have been eating venison shot with lead shot for 30 years and ducks before they went to steel shot. I do think the slug would have to be there for quite a while before it would poison the meat. You should be safe. Good luck to ya.

[hobbydog]

Lead is nasty stuff....if you don't think so pop a lead pellet a day and report back to us in a year and let us know how you are doing

Lead shot is bad news for ducks and waterfowl. There are hundreds of studies to prove this....do a google search....or start here.

http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/othrdata/pbpoison/mortalit.htm

Lead bullets on the other hand are not that big of an issue. With the exception of gun ranges they are scattered far and wide....unlike lead shot which gets concentrated in lake bottoms, especially in heavily hunted areas. I do expect the debate on lead ingestion by eagles to heat up as the number of eagles continue to dramatically increase. We used to only see ravens and magpies on gut piles....last year there were eagles working most of the piles in the area.....never saw so many during deer hunting as I did last year. There will be instances but I think it will still be rare and eagles are no longer endangered.