I'm NOT "assuming" anything, Jane.  I was noting what I thought should be a
key point to document if one is making the case against lead shot.  Just
because I have fired a shotgun at game birds in years past, and appreciate
the hunting experience, one should not assume that I support the use of
lead shot in hunting of mourning doves.

Bill

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 5:22 PM, Jane Clark <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>  Bill—I don’t think you can assume that lead shot will be scattered
> widely and not be directly ingested by various bird species.  ****
>
> The USGS brochure on Lead Poisoning on Wild Birds notes that “Terrestrial
> bird species reported with ingested spent lead shot include mourning doves,
> ring-necked pheasants, northern bobwhite quail, wild turkey, and chukars.”
> (Note, no songbirds are mentioned here—most research is done on game
> species.)****
>
> Lead shot ingestion in mourning doves has been well documented in
> scientific research for more than 50 years.  In 1999, the US Fish and
> Wildlife Service reported that "mourning doves are particularly likely to
> ingest spent lead shot."  Ingestion of spent lead shot is recognized as a
> significant problem due to the harmful toxic effects and high mortality
> rate among victims. In wildlife, primary and secondary consumption is known
> to directly or indirectly impact populations through acute or chronic lead
> poisoning.****
>
> ** **
>
> Iowa DNR and county conservation boards have planted fields of sunflower,
> etc. for dove hunting fields.  ****
>
> Todd Bogenschutz, upland game biologist for the Department of Natural
> Resources (DNR), in an April 9, 2011 Cedar Rapids Gazette article, said the
> DNR plans to establish food plots -- sunflowers, sorghum, millet and wheat
> -- on state-owned leased farm ground.   (Dove shooting fields and "hunts"
> are managed to attract a large number of feeding mourning doves and keep
> them on the wing for shooters to target.  Typically, plot management is
> implemented with the principal of planting and conditioning the birds to
> the fields prior to opening day.)****
>
> According to Missouri Department of Conservation resource scientist John
> Schulz in the Cedar Rapids Gazette article, a survey conducted on dove
> hunting at a managed field near Kansas City found 800 hunters fired 40,000
> rounds to kill 1200 to 1400 doves.  ****
>
> ** **
>
> Fields like this can be heavily hunted and according to Ted Williams who
> writes a column named “Incite” in Audubon Magazine, wrote an article about
> lead and below are excerpts from that article.  Ted Williams is an avid
> hunter.****
>
> From Audubon magazine:****
>
> The U.S. Geological Survey reports that as many as 400,000 lead shotgun
> pellets per acre rain annually on popular hunting fields, ****
>
> And,****
>
> Hunters shoot roughly 20 million mourning doves a year, but evidence
> suggests that nearly that many 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. And in an area in
> Arizona that wasn’t even managed for dove hunting, 19.9 percent of doves
> sampled had lead shot in their digestive tracts. Even if doves haven’t
> ingested lead shot, when hunters shoot them full of it, scavengers find
> lost carcasses. ****
>
> And,****
>
> Ducks, swans, and geese actually key in on lead shot because to their
> sensitive bills it feels like seeds. ……..Mammalian scavengers are also at
> risk. In one study, 46 percent of blood samples from grizzly bears showed
> elevated lead. ****
>
> And,****
>
> The federal government had known about it since at least 1894, when
> Audubon founder George Bird Grinnell first sounded the alarm in *Forest &
> Stream* magazine. But today—after the public has watched for 117 years as
> waterfowl and other wildlife die from swallowing lead shot and bullet
> fragments—the mantra from the gun lobby that plumbism publicity is a plot
> to disarm America remains unchanged. The question Americans need to be
> asking now is: Will that mantra, along with the toxic injections it has
> preserved, go unchanged for another century? ****
>
> Jane Clark****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
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