Conservation 101: the Compete to Conserve Blog

photo credit: Velo Steve

In August, we wrote about a California Audubon report that said lead poisoning from spent hunting ammunition is killing the last California condors — birds that, thanks to two decades of human intervention, were brought back from the brink of extinction. The report also noted that this costly recovery effort is unrealistic and unsustainable unless lead is banned from hunting ammunition.

Now the Los Angeles Times reports that: “A ban on hunting with lead ammunition within the California condor’s 2,385-square-mile range will be expanded to prohibit its use in the shooting of small nuisance animals [such as squirrels and rabbits].”

Good News for California Condors

The majestic birds with wingspans up to 9 1/2 feet are scavengers, like vultures, which means they ingest lead while eating the carcasses of hunted animals and gut piles.

The California Condor Preservation Act had already banned lead ammunition from hunting large games such as deer and antelope (presumably an easier sell to hunters because people don’t want to ingest lead from game they’ve hunted either). This will be the first time the act applies to small animals, which are more likely to be left behind, and thus more likely to be eaten by California condors.

Read the complete story at: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-condors4-2008dec04,0,1706424.story

photo credit: apert

Thanks to enormous human intervention and tens of millions of dollars spent, the California condor population is at 279, up from just 21 in 1982. But according to a new report released by California Audubon, this recovery effort requires “constant and costly human assistance” that is unsustainable and unrealistic unless lead is banned from ammunition.

Lead Is Bad News for Condors and People Alike

Lead poisoning from spent ammunition is what drove North America’s largest birds to the brink in the 1980s, and it continues to sicken and kill the last surviving California condors. Condors, as a scavenging species, feed on carcasses, so the killed game remains left by hunters are integral to condor survival. Unfortunately, when the carcasses contain lead-bullet fragments, condors inadvertently ingest lead. The consequences are deadly.

(It’s also worth noting that the lead fragments in shot game are highly toxic for humans and at least 48 other species, including Bald and Golden eagles.)

Tiny Lead Fragments Cause Birds to Starve

What happens to the majestic birds after ingesting lead fragments isn’t pretty. Lead poisoning paralyzes the birds’ digestive systems and they are doomed to slowly starve. So poisoned birds are trapped, confined, and injected twice a day with a chemical to rid the body of lead. Sometimes the treatments don’t work, and birds die despite conservationists’ best efforts.

Copper Bullets Cost More and Are Not Always Available

Efforts to encourage voluntary replacement of lead ammunition and to remove or bury kills have been largely unsuccessful. Not all hunters are aware of the environmental harm lead bullets wreak. Habits are hard to break. And higher costs and lack of widespread availability of alternatives, such as 100-percent copper bullets, also hamper compliance, even on ranges where lead ammunition is already banned.

Today, human assistance acts as a costly band-aid to the problem. California condors are provided lead-free food at man-made feeding stations, hindering their ability to forage. They are also regularly monitored, trapped, tested, and treated for frequent lead poisoning, which lessons their fear of people and man-made structures. As a result, the birds risk electrocution from sitting on utility lines and frequently feed harmful “microtrash” (nuts, bolts, rags, bottle caps, etc.) to their young chicks.

Removing the Source of Lead Is the Condors’ Only Hope

As long as lead exposure continues, recovery efforts are doomed. Researchers hope that a successfully enforced ban on lead ammunition across Western hunting ranges would allow the California condor to survive without human assistance.

More resources:

Audubon California
View the complete report as a downloadable PDF:
http://ca.audubon.org/AOU_CONDOR_REPORT_Aug08_final.pdf

The Audubon California page below hasn’t been updated to reflect the passage of CA bill AB821, but it provides a good summary of recovery efforts and information on where to find alternatives lead bullets:
http://ca.audubon.org/California_Condor.html

The American Fisheries Society on the impact of lead in shooting and fishing sports (downloadable PDF)
http://www.fisheries.org/afs/docs/fisheries/fisheries_3305.pdf

U.S. National Park Service
http://www.nps.gov/pinn/naturescience/leadinfo.htm
Lead v. Copper Bullets Quicktime movie