Lead shot ban in WA for Upland birds, small game, turkeys?!

[bobcat]

Actually they should replace any shells they destroy right then and there. That would really piss me off to have a game warden cutting open my shotgun shells.      

[sisu]

The lead ban makes as much sense as saying amalgam dental fillings are polluting our bodies. The only dentists that I've ever heard say the old mercury based filling were bad were greeny tree hugging money grabbing tooth grinders. I still have a mouth full of mercury and I'm just fine, at least when the voices stop. heeheeheehee

Here is a li nk on the amalgam scam: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/mercury.html

The lead ban on water fowl I agreed with but to go farther and ban upland if it's not near big bodies of water fowl usage makes no sense at all, but we are not the policy makers and movers. A lot of this new policy is just being done to say I, Mr or Ms. so and so did this. See example below.
Like one big shot fed told me in Alaska. He was the youngest person ever to be put in charge of federal commercial fishing water and HE was going to make policy that people WOULD remember. We were sitting on top of a 300 foot water falls that I'd just climbed. He had come up a different route and was using our belay station. He wasn't clipped in when he said that and for a moment I thought of how quick his poilcy could end.

[ICEMAN]

Actually they should replace any shells they destroy right then and there. That would really piss me off to have a game warden cutting open my shotgun shells.      

I would be pissed too, especially with commercially loaded shells. A quick little terry stop near the waterway to check your tag is all I want. Don't start Fing with me. I follow the rules and am not really happy to be treated at this extra level of scrutiny. I consider some of what WDFW Enforcement does as harassment. I consider it, the courts obviously do not.

[bowhuntin]

I would feel the same way if a game warden cut open my shells. That is BS.

Does anyone know the name of the study they are basing this regulation change on? Was the study actually done in Washington?

[runamuk]

I would feel the same way if a game warden cut open my shells. That is BS.

Does anyone know the name of the study they are basing this regulation change on? Was the study actually done in Washington?

Pretty difficult to study condors in WA we don't have any   A ton of the research on condors has been done in Boise Idaho at the raptor center where they raise and flight train condors for release programs.  Along with supposedly rehabbing injured raptors (wasn't the case when we had a Kestrel in need, thanks to a falconer we got her some help).

I am still wondering why lead in shot and bullets is more impacting than road runoff  seems to me there is a hell of a lot more lead produced by the millions of cars driving 24/7 

I do get the direct ingestion issue from gutpiles but have always wondered do bullets really blow apart into millions of tiny bits?  If so why do bullets in those CSI type shows always remain whole?  Have any of the hunters here ever recovered a bullet when cleaning an animal....I end up helping my son pick steel out of birds when packaging.....so many unanswered questions and I gotta go to work

[Curly]

I don't think there is that much lead in storm runoff that can be attributed to cars.  Since leaded gas was outlawed, there probably isn't much lead from vehicles.

As far as bullets blowing apart into a milion tiny bits..........yes it happens.  Especially with cheaper bullets.  The first buck I shot was with a factory Rem Core-lokt 150 gr and it only hit one rib going in but apparently blew up at impact on the rib.  There were lead particles all over the inside of that buck.  It was like a bomb went off.  Nothing left of the heart or lungs.

A good judge of bullet performance is how much weight it retains.  Well, it used to be that a "good" weight retention number was anything over 60%.  Well, where does the other 40% of lead go?
I think that these days there are a lot of bullets that will retain much better than 60% because a lot of bullets now are bonded.

[sisu]

Washington's Columbia River Drainage system is fed by feeder streams that carry century old mining run off via the tailing and materials that were placed in the stream beds way back then. There is an abundance of different chemicals,  and elements (lead is a in the periodic chart so it is therefore an element just like gold, mercury, Arsenic, Aluminum etc.) Lead is the convenient scape goat right now to blame all the problems on. Did you know all you have to do is add one more electron, proton and neutron to lead and guess what you get Bismuth.
Maybe if we all switch to bismuth the antis will find that the lead just stays there and does not move because it's a basic element that appears naturally in nature. Wow, a revolution for their tiny little PETA, ALF, & ELF minds.

Bismuth Symbol: Bi                                             Lead Symbol: Pb

Bismuth Atomic Number: 83                                  Lead Atomic Number: 82

Bismuth Atomic Weight: 208.980                           Lead Atomic Weight: 207.19

[runamuk]

There is still lead in gas just not as much, also brake dust, batteries, and as Sisu pointed out in nature.  I just never would think to point my finger at hunters for a major contribution to lead problems....honestly I bet there is more lead in the average garbage can every week, than from hunters.....think of all the batteries etc that are tossed in the trash.

I do find the info on bullets interesting, I didn't realize they would blow apart like that....

And the people I know who are at the highest risk for lead exposure causing problems are stained glass artists....they come into alot of direct contact with alot of lead and lead poisoning is not uncommon after 20 or 30 years of daily exposure.

[FrankDown]

Old bodymen used to wipe lead every day.  I knew a few of the,  THey say it didnt bother them.  I never met any of the dead ones though.

In California there are areas that you cannot use lead shot.  Some places you could.  Idont think it would make much of a difference other than convenience, and money.  I shoot better with lead, but because Ive been shooting it more than other stuff.

[bowhuntin]

I would feel the same way if a game warden cut open my shells. That is BS.

Does anyone know the name of the study they are basing this regulation change on? Was the study actually done in Washington?

Pretty difficult to study condors in WA we don't have any   A ton of the research on condors has been done in Boise Idaho at the raptor center where they raise and flight train condors for release programs.  Along with supposedly rehabbing injured raptors (wasn't the case when we had a Kestrel in need, thanks to a falconer we got her some help).

I am still wondering why lead in shot and bullets is more impacting than road runoff  seems to me there is a hell of a lot more lead produced by the millions of cars driving 24/7 

I do get the direct ingestion issue from gutpiles but have always wondered do bullets really blow apart into millions of tiny bits?  If so why do bullets in those CSI type shows always remain whole?  Have any of the hunters here ever recovered a bullet when cleaning an animal....I end up helping my son pick steel out of birds when packaging.....so many unanswered questions and I gotta go to work

If the study was of the condors in california how does that study influence us if we don't even have this species. Dumb policy decision if you ask me. We have no way of knowing if small traces of lead from shot or bullets even has an indirect effect on any species in our state because no studies have been done. If there was a problem I think we would being seeing a lot of dead birds or other species from this being that people have been hunting with modern firearms for over 100 years.

[bobcat]

But they are relocating some condors into the Columbia River Gorge, on the Washington/Oregon border. At least that's what I heard.

[Ironhead]

Are they native to Washington?

[bowhuntin]

  They better be if they are going to use tax payer money to release a bird into our state.

[bobcat]

Apparently California Condors were present during the Lewis & Clark expedition, I did a Google search and found this:

Sunday, November 9, noon
Dedication of California Condor Bronze Sculpture
Port of Ilwaco Covered Pavilion

A life-sized replica of a California Condor, sculpted by nationally-known artist Bart Kenworthy, has been erected as a tribute to the Lewis & Clark Expedition which found a “vulture of the large kind’ on November 18, 1805. The bird, with its 9-foot wing span, was among specimens sent to President Thomas Jefferson. Commissioned by Pacific County Friends of Lewis & Clark, the Condor is posed on the ribs of a whale and both are attached to a basalt rock weighing 40,000 pounds.

[Jerbear]

Iceman
Come on back to Klickitat County.  You know our gammies are a kind and plesant bunch.  Well you met one, and now aren't you a kinder better person because of it?