Page 8A
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East Oregonian
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
LEAD: Blue Mountain Wildlife will x-ray game meat for lead fragments
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every time she hears that a
hunter such as Peckham has
converted to non-lead bullets
or shot. She sees the unin-
tended consequences of lead
almost every day. Tompkins,
executive director of Blue
Mountain Wildlife, takes
care of orphaned, sick and
injured wildlife that are
brought to the center. She
routinely checks the blood
of eagles, hawks and other
scavenger birds for lead.
Lately, high lead levels are
causing her to do double
takes.
Just for comparison,
consider the water crisis in
Flint, Michigan, where high
levels of lead (considered
toxic at over ¿ve micro-
grams of lead per deciliter)
showed up in the blood of
Flint children.
Tompkins
measures
much higher levels in her
feathered patients. In the last
few months, she found blood
levels in several bald eagles
and hawks as high as 209
micrograms per deciliter and
another at 411.
“That eagle had the
highest lead level I’ve ever
measured,” Tompkins said.
“He could stand, but he
couldn’t walk.”
Tompkins uses chelation
to clean some of the lead
from their blood, but many
are too sick for it to do any
good. If the lead moves to
other parts of their bodies,
she said, it never leaves. The
bird with the 411 level died
quickly.
Hawks, eagles, owls and
other birds are exposed to
lead when they ingest lead
shotgun pellets or bullet
fragments. The birds scav-
enge dead animals shot but
not recovered by hunters.
They come across gut piles
and carcasses of animals
such as squirrels and jack
rabbits shot as varmints.
California is in the
process of banning lead
ammunition completely by
2019. Oregon prohibits lead
ammunition for shooting
waterfowl in accordance
with federal regulation,
but leaves the choice up to
hunters for other types of
game.
Hunters have accepted
the idea of steel shot for
waterfowl, but are slower
to come around to copper
bullets, said Jim Akenson,
conservation director for
the Oregon Hunters Associ-
ation.
“They are familiar with
the performance of steel
shot now. The skepticism is
pretty much gone,” Akenson
said. “Copper bullets are in
an earlier (and voluntary)
phase of acceptance. I think
it’s going to be baby steps.”
Tompkins worries about
the health of hunters and
their families as well as
birds. She cited a 2008
University of North Dakota
study where researchers
used tomography to detect
lead fragments in packages
of ground venison donated
by hunters to a food pantry.
Fifty-nine percent of the
packages had one or more
visible metal fragments.
Another group of researchers
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Lynn Tompkins prepares a blood sample from a red-
tailed hawk to test lead levels at Blue Mountain
Wildlife in Pendleton.
¿red lead and copper bullets
into ballistic gelatin to ¿nd
that lead bullets break into
hundreds of small pieces
when they strike an animal,
while copper stays more
than 98 percent intact.
The studies recently
prompted Tompkins to
offer a service to the public.
She urges people to bring
in packages of game meat
(thawed or frozen) to Blue
Mountain Wildlife and she
will x-ray them to determine
whether lead fragments are
present. She said the process
is quick and she can x-ray
multiple packages at once.
She’s curious at what she
will ¿nd.
“I’ll x-ray the meat for
free and we’ll see what’s in
it,” Tompkins said. “Maybe
we won’t ¿nd anything, but
maybe we will.”
The biggest exposure
to birds may come from
hunters who shoot agricul-
tural pests and other animals
such as coyotes, squirrels,
prairie dogs and jackrabbits.
“A lot of times, the
carcasses are left on the land-
scape,” said Leland Brown,
Wildlife and Lead Control
Coordinator for the Oregon
Zoo. “We end up with a lot
of lead left out there. With
steel shot or copper bullets,
that wouldn’t be a problem.”
Brown has visited ¿ve
sportsmen shows in recent
months where he talked
with more than 4,000 people
about the dangers of lead to
both hunters and wildlife. He
played videos showing lead
fragmenting into hundreds
of little pieces.
“A
very
consistent
comment was ‘Wow, I never
thought about this,’” Brown
said.
Brown, himself a hunter,
has faith that hunters will
gradually embrace non-lead
ammunition.
“Hunters have a long
history as conservationists
and taking care of our
wildlife. We want to live up
to what’s been passed down
to us,” Brown said. “No
one wants to go out into the
woods and never see another
eagle again.”
Brown and Akenson
believe hunters resist for a
variety of reasons. Some
have large stockpiles of lead
ammunition they want to
use before switching. Others
balk at the higher cost of
non-lead shot and bullets.
Performance and availability
are two other issues that are
constantly evolving.
An informal survey of
ammunition prices show a
difference in cost between
lead and copper bullets.
Cabela’s, for example,
charges $32.99 for a box
of Hornady Superformance
lead bullets and $42.99
for Superformance copper
bullets. A look into a couple
of local sporting good stores
showed copper bullets in
supply but not moving
swiftly off the shelves.
Jim Faris, who stood
behind the counter in the
hunting section of D&B
Supply, said he expects that
to change eventually. Faris
shares the latest research
with his customers about the
differences in power. Copper
bullets travel farther into the
animal for more humane,
one-shot kills and do not
break apart.
“Copper bullets do not
fragment,” he said. “They
retain 99 percent of their
original weight.”
Rick Hadden, owner of
Garner’s Sporting Goods,
said copper bullets perform
well and don’t cost much
more. He said resistance to
using them is less about cost
than human nature.
“We’re creatures of
habit,” he said. “We’re slow
to switch.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
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