On Thu, 27 Jul 1995, Don Baccus wrote:
> >The court enjoined the use of the lead shot as a violation of the
> >Endangered Species Act.
>
> This may've been the case that got the ball rolling. As mentioned
> earlier, the reason for banning lead shot was eagle, not waterfowl
> poisoning. The hunting community and our state (MY state, Oregon)
> biologists fought the switch when the argument was based on
> waterfowl mortality, arguing that the mortality was acceptable
> in light of the greater expense, lower lethality, and potential
> damage to firearms which supposedly result from the use of steel
> shot.

Don,

Another arguement that you don't mention, that was very much a part of
the discussions/decisions, was that the use of steel shot, with its
lesser density, would or might result in at least as much mortality
- due to crippling - as did lead poisoning.

A number of studies to determine the relative crippling losses of steel
and lead shot were conducted. I worked on one such study at Lacassine
NWR in Louisiana in 1981, and believe that all (or most) of these studies
conducted across the country - Missouri, Tule Lake, etc - found that
crippling rates were pretty much the same with steel shot as they were
with lead shot.

However, until the studies were conducted, it would *not* have been
proper to make the switch from lead to steel solely to "save" waterfowl.
Managers do not have the luxury of foresight, and I do not think that it
is entirely fair to hold their decisions of the past to the standards of
today. They just didn't have the information at the time.

Think of the outcry from the public (Audubon included) if the managers
had made the switch to steel shot because it seemed, intuitively, to be
the thing to do - and *then* people found out that more birds were dying
from crippling mortality than had been dying from lead poisoning! Thank
goodness that wasn't the case :-)

When it became evident that eagles were being dosed with lead from duck
carcasses, there was certainly a reason to move forward with the
substitute for lead shot. And They did so.

And, BTW, the earlier (ca. 1975) steel shot probably would damage
shotguns. Today's steel is better (softer) and is contained in a
protective wadding designed specifically for steel shot that had not
been developed 20 years ago.

Jon. Anderson
Olympia, WA
anderjda at dfw.wa.gov