Get the lead out of hunting

On my trying-to-stay-healthy walk down the road, I came over the hill to find three mature bald eagles sitting on the gravel shoulder. Two of them immediately lifted into the air and disappeared. I plopped down to watch the remaining one. It was clear this was no ordinary bird.

It couldn't stay balanced, but kept leaning, pushing its wings out like a crutch. I thought it had been hit by a car as it kept righting itself as a drunk only can. Finally it fell over and started flopping around, trying to get back up. I stood at attention, the closest I had ever been to an eagle.

A copper-green stain covered its white tail feathers. Its breathing was labored and erratic. It finally climbed to its feet and lifted its gaze as if willing itself to fly but couldn't. The autopsy confirmed the bird died of lead poisoning.

While lead shot was banned for waterfowl hunting in 1991, it still is used extensively for upland hunting, shooting sports and fishing tackle. Exposure to lead is harmful; lead does not deteriorate and remains toxic.

We have stopped using it in gasoline and paints. We restrict imports of products containing lead. In clinical trials, 200 milligrams of lead, one No. 4 pellet, the size of a big BB, was found to be a lethal dose for a bald eagle.

An estimated 3,000 tons of lead are shot into the environment by hunters every year, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility - a national non-profit alliance of local, state and federal scientists, law enforcement officers, land managers and other professionals dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values. The group estimates another 80,000 tons of lead is released at shooting ranges, and 4,000 tons lost in ponds and streams as fishing lures and sinkers.

As many as 20 million birds and other animals die each year from subsequent lead poisoning, including bald eagles, endangered condors and more than 130 species of wildlife. Lead ammunition also puts people's health at risk when they eat shot game, according to the group: 'Studies using radiographs show that numerous, imperceptible, dust-sized particles of lead can infect meat up to a foot and a half away from the bullet wound, causing a greater health risk to humans who consume lead-shot game than previously thought.”

Hunters shoot roughly 20 million mourning doves a year. Evidence suggests nearly as many birds die from eating lead shot. A study at the James A. Reed Memorial Wildlife Area in Missouri revealed that 728 dove hunters had deposited 348,037 lead pellets per acre. No one knows how many raptors are killed each year from ingesting lead when eating fish, a game animal carcass or gut pile.

Recently, the Quad-City Times reported, 'Researchers working at the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge recently conducted autopsies on 168 dead bald eagles found in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. According to their tests, nearly half the birds had detectable levels of lead in their livers. Worse, 21 percent of the eagles most likely died from exposure to the toxic metal.” Most showed physical signs of lead exposure.

Iowa wildlife rehabilitators began gathering lead poisoning information on bald eagles in 2004. Kay Neumann, who directs Saving Our Avian Resources, based in Dedham, states, 'The USFWS mirrors our rehab data almost exactly.” Thirty-nine (63 percent) of the 62 tested for lead had lethal levels, seven others tested positive.

Up to one-fifth of the lower 48 states' eagle population winters in Iowa, and this poisoning mortality could be significant and is preventable. Why don't we use non-lead ammunition? It is slightly more expensive, but for whom?

' Mark S. Edwards of Boone has worked for the Iowa Conservation Commission and is retired from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, where he was trails coordinator. Comments: markedwards60@gmail.com