Reprinted from Nov 11, 2007 column in Morgantown Dominion Post.
In recent months we’ve heard a lot about lead in toys that come from China. We’ve always known about lead in paint (kids—don’t put pencils in your mouth because there might be lead in the yellow paint—remember those warnings?), lead in pipes and water, and of course, lead in gasoline. Then there was the ban of fishing lead sinkers. Yes, lead is not good for us or for the environment.
Recently 15 Trumpeter Swans died from lead poisoning from ingesting pellets while feeding. And this in a lake in Minnesota where lead shot has not been legal for 20 years. The pellets were there all the time.
In the September 2007 issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management there was an article on the exposure of California Condors to lead from spent ammunition. There was no question, both living Condors and those found dead, had high levels of lead in their system. And, there was a direct correlation in those levels to the big game hunting season. During and right after the season, lead levels in birds was highest. The facts were rather irrefutable. One of the worlds most endangered species was feasting on carcasses or gut piles left during the hunting season and eating bullet fragments and this lead was impacting their survival. Little wonder then that this past month, California banned the use of lead bullets.
OK, but what about spent fragments of lead bullets in gut piles from deer harvested by hunters? Every fall there are literally hundreds of thousands of offal piles left in the woods by hunters. For example, every fall there are 650,000 such "gut" piles left in Wisconsin woods alone. Much of these offal piles are consumed by mammalian and avian scavengers. The question then becomes, are there bullet fragments in these offal piles?
An article in a 2006 issue of the Wildlife Society Bulletin gives us some answers. Researchers looked at the whole or partial remains of 38 deer killed by single shots to the thorax by hunters using standard, center-fire, breach-loading rifles in Wyoming and California. There were 15 gut piles and nine whole deer carcasses. There were four eviscerated carcasses, and 10 carcasses with the viscera anterior to the diaphragm left in place.
The average bullet weighed 145 grains; 34 were standard copper-jacketed, lead core bullets, and 4 were monolithic copper expanding bullets. Seventeen of the former were lead-tipped, 12 were polymer-tipped, 2 were hollow points, and 3 were of unrecorded structure. The hunters shot a distance of between 35 to 180 yards. Veterinarians radiographed the areas around the bullet wounds in all the carcasses and gut piles. What did they find?
There were from 2-521 lead fragments in all but two of the gut piles. Indeed five gut piles had over 200 lead fragments. There were between 416 and 783 lead fragments in the whole deer carcasses and between 25 and 472 fragments in the carcasses that just had the stomach and intestines removed. Copper bullets did not fragment as much with only six small pieces found in four whole deer killed with those bullets.
Many of the fragments were quite small, some very difficult to see. Most certainly some of our West Virginia birds and mammals that eat deer gut piles are getting lead poisoning, but I know of no data to support this supposition.
I bowhunt and admittedly know nothing about bullets, those with lead or those without. Someone recently told me that almost all rifle bullets have some lead and of course primitive muzzleloaders shoot lead balls. My good friend and classic muzzleloader builder from Bruceton Mills tells me that many lead balls go completely thru animals, thus reducing any potential carcass problem. In addition, lead balls will mushroom to quarter size, making ingestion improbable. And they do not leave lead fragments. Even so, with the lead ban in California, those who use flint lock rifles are scrambling to find bullets that are legal.
I do know that more and more scientific studies show lead poisoning in predatory birds such as condors and eagles. But before we panic here in West Virginia we need data on what eats deer gut piles and is any ingestion a problem. There are copper jacketed bullets with bonded and non-bonded lead inside. Is this lead a problem? No data. Even though there is no data from West Virginia deer gut piles, hunters should be aware that there is a growing concern about lead bullet fragments in deer gut piles. Having said that, right now I’m not sure hunters have any alternatives relative to bullets used. No doubt, down the road, manufacturers will begin to solve this problem as hunters are asked to "get the lead out."
