Leave it to Kalifornia!

Sportsmans money that is responsible for the health of the outdoors we so deeply appreciate but then state that you never contributed a thing beyond the cost of a subscription, (little of which does anything but pays salaries and mails you your monthly magazine). It would seem that if you are so intent in its health that you'd do more than just buy the monthly magazine.

You're right of course that the pollution that is caused by INDUSTRY far exceeds that caused by our "little lead sinkers".....but let me ask you this....can YOU PERSONALLY do anything about the pollution from the factory, or power plant? NOPE, you can't, and likely you'd vote against any changes that would fix that problem that would also increase your out of pocket costs.....but how about the damage that "little lead wt" causes? Can you do something about that? YES, you can......

And thats my point....we should do what we can, when we can, and not continue to add to the pile just because we think our personal contribution is insignificant.....you might have missed that message in my posts so I thought I'd state it again, no matter how "wound up", or "offended by someone elses opinion" it might make me appear.....

As to the Condors...YEP, I do hold them dear to my heart, just as I do Eagles and Hawks, and Wolves and Hell, ask John, Butterflies.....I like them for what they are individually and I like them for what they mean to the health of the ecosystem. Why? Because I'm one of those whacko bunny hugger, tree lover, hunters that doesn't take offense to being called an "environmentalist". And also because I believe that an inability for any species to exist is an indication that we have so negatively impacted that environment that all of the species that inhabit it, not just the most visiable ones, are in jeopardy as well......And in the end, to me, if we can save a single indicator species, while benefitted every other species as well, by the simple expediant of replacing the lead in rifle bullets then you can bet I'm going to be all over that like ugly on a carp....all the while scratching my head as to why "everyone" doesn't feel the same way.....

Steve
 
tod, my mistake but that is what i meant and luckily we have a pro environment govenor in office.which i did vote for.(recently shut down ticonderogas tire burning experiment)

steve, the magazine issue only pertains to the nra.which like i said you CAN believe everything, some things or nothing from orgs like that, i choose to believe some things and therefor if you read my post would have seen that i stated i did not hold a subscription to that magazine. i spend more money on gear (most of which bares a DU logo) and donations to pro outdoor/environmental orgs then i should as a full time working full time college student. including my five different subscriptions to ducks unlimited because of the 7 banquets i attend in vermont in the course of the year(i fill out the ticket cards wrong and get 5 magazines every 2 months). i am also a member of and donate to the qdma, nwtf and the conn waterfowlers association. as well as a member of the friends of the missisquoi national wildlife refuge. so i do my part. im not saying that certain animals are more important either. i agree with you on the lead sinker thing (which are illegal in vermont)and they do kill loons, but so do lakefront houses and i agree with the feral cats, i shoot every stray that comes buy the barn.

i wrote that previous response before i saw that there were 4 PAGES of them and had read them all. and i thought i was gonna get steve on the NH moto thing. i only know their moto cause they've been spooning with us since 1791 ;) props to lee on that one. now we know that steve dosent know eveything and is a human and not a fact spitting informational robot.

eddie
 
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for mis-reading your post as to the "participation" thing and assuming no participation......

I think the thing that gets me, and amazes me at the same time, about this particular issue, (and all issues are the same of course, this one just happens to be the one in the headlights this week), is that there "seems" to be a concensus that "the lead that sportsmen introduce to the environment is insignificant to the other point sources of pollution, some of it worse than lead, and that because of that there "must" be another reason for wanting to eliminate it, (read: OUR GUNS, or, OUR FREEDOMS)".

I certainly wouldn't argue that there are a plethora of things that are worse, or more insidious, but don't see that sticking my head in the sand, or in this case in the gut pile with the lead fragments, and ignoring it just because there are bigger issues, even if one of the people in the coalition to ban lead "might" have an ulterior motive, is the best course.

I'm preplexed that even those people that think that Condors are "stupid", "don't deserve to live", are "ugly", "have outlived their time", etc., don't see the value of the bird beyond the ability for a few bird watchers to add it to their life list, and particularly so when "potentially" saving them requires nothing more of us than shooting copper bullets instead of lead. So as a result I'm dumbfounded when the response is something along the lines of "its not worth it", or, "no one is going to tell me what to shoot", or "there are worse issues than this".....

I'm stunned that all of us, even the ones that wouldn't know a Condor from a Chickadee, and that will never even see the mtns. that they live in, don't see the value in making sure that they remain a viable population because I'm positive that people can tell a Condor from a CONDO and that if the Condors weren't there thats what would replace them....

Anyway thats just me....personally I've never seen one....nor the mtns. of their core habitat. I hope to someday but even if I don't, I like to know that they are there, and that the user group that I'm a part of, HUNTERS, wasn't a part of their demise simply because of the choice of a bullet, or that I didn't change because I was afraid of the gun control lobby.

Steve
 
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When I entered the workforce, I got into commercial real estate. And at that time, all the environmental laws were being invented and put into place... remember "Super Fund"? A true garbage law that invented environmental lawyers who bought second homes, put their kids through Yale and then had a little left over to buy Bertrams and lots of lead weights for their fishing habit.

We in commercial real estate hated those laws. They slowed us down, land wasn't really "owned" until the Govt. provided a clean bill of health because no one wanted the liability. Whole industries were developed in the toxic cleanup and identification fields... it was an awful time. The $ waste was rampant.

The industry morphed and privatized itself however. Buyers and bankers started to self police and yes of course it costs money and time but those of us who remember the landfills, dumps and factories of the 60's and 70's can admit the USA is a cleaner place than it was then. Obviously less wild open spaces, but the urbanized areas are in better shape. At the end of the day, the Government seeded the process and private industry took over and provided meaningful change.

I read this lengthy post and I wish just once that we as outdoorsmen could agree that substituting toxic stuff for non-toxic stuff is a good thing. That it really has zero to do with gun rights. I wish we (DU, NRA, etc.) led the effort and not the nutty enviro groups. Like the enviro regulations of the past have taught us (albeit expensively), allowing less toxicity in bird or fish populations' digestive tracks is probably the right thing to do...
 
Busy, busy, busy at work and now I find that I have missed out on jumping into an important issue – unregulated and uncontrolled disposal of solid lead.

As an environmental consultant who cleans up contaminated properties for the federal government these last 17 years, I can tell you that the main issue with solid lead is that it oxidizes and then can more easily leach into the water. It does not take significant concentrations of lead to have an effect on the environment over the long term. However, you have to have a completed pathway in order for the contaminant to pose a risk. If there is no connection to groundwater or surface water, and no people or animals are in active contact with the contaminated materials then the exposure pathway is not complete and the risk is not there. This is basic environmental site investigation and mitigation stuff. The panic of the 1980’s and early 1990’s that Andrew mentions’ dealing with in real estate is over now that science has had time to work out solutions. However, some folks will always think in a “the sky is falling” way when it comes to environmental concerns. There are some seriously nasty places out there that do pose a huge risk to human and ecological health, but there are ways to fix them. It just takes money.

I have been around the cleanup of two military small arms ranges – one outdoors with a soil backstop and one indoors with a bullet trap. The back stop soil pile was screened to remove the solid lead and then the soil was tested to determine if it was a characteristic waste for lead under RCRA (meaning was it hazardous waste). The use of ball ammo with copper jackets resulted in non-hazardous lead contaminated soil. These results meant the soil was easy to dispose of and not a significant threat to the environment unless you were going to be eating large quantities of dirt on a daily basis. However, the soil still had to be shipped to a permitted landfill in Oregon (Columbia Ridge) since Alaska’s landfills are just permitted for house hold trash. The indoor range with the bullet trap resulted in the sand being hazardous waste for lead contamination. The bullets were hitting an angled steel plate and landing down in a sand bed. They were pretty torn up once they got down in the sand and there were lots of lead particles which is what caused the sand to fail testing and be characterized as a hazardous waste.

There once was a muzzle loader range on Naval Air Station Adak. During the cleanup in the 1990’s there was a concern that the lead balls and the corrosive effect of the black powder would have made the lead in the back stop more toxic than normal. Testing showed that that was not the case and the site was close as a “no further action” site under the CERCLA cleanup action (superfund) that the Navy was doing.

I have taken note these last several years that the “greenies” have been using the legal tools made available by our government to slow down or stop things that some group or another would consider progress. I have always wondered why sportsmen didn’t use the same process for their concerns. The PETA and HSUS want the USFWS to perform an environmental impact statement on hunting on refuges. I believe this was shot down last year since hunting and recreation are not activities that came under the intent of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The range owners in Californication can fight back by testing their facilities and showing that there is not an issue. Everyone has the right to due process, and the state environmental regulatory agency(ies) should be the first one in line to require some assessment testing to see if there is a problem. Due process should not be based on hyperbole resulting from public outcry.

So rather than say it is not fair, use the very same legal tools to prove that it is not an issue. Of course it could work out that it is an issue, but then that would be the facts rather than a belief system based on emotions.

Of course there is the feel good method of doing what you think is right and just, rather than having to be regulated to do so. That is an ethics issue that should not have to be regulated by our government. However, the problem is that way too many people have no understanding of what ethical behavior really is, so the government has to step in. And therein is the other problem. The majority of our government is operated by unethical people, so should they be the ones that tell us what to do? No. A conundrum for sure.

And to Steve’s post on why not let the condor have its day in the sun - Why not in deed. Think of all the critters that man has had an effect on over the last 400 years in North America. Elk and bison roamed coast to coast in the 1600’s. Most of the trails and primitive road systems on the west slope Appalachian Mountains started as bison trails. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were still free ranging bison and elk in Tennessee and Kentucky?

It is all about our false belief that we have “Dominion over Nature”. HA! As a geographer and a geologist there is only one thing that has dominion over the Earth and that is water. The only reason anything can live on this mud ball in space is the fact that water’s normal state here is its liquid form. If you don’t believe that water has total power over everything on this planet, then don’t consume anything with water in it for the next month and let us all know how your dominion is going. That means the only thing you can eat are dry grains since everything in our food supply has some level of moisture.

And if someone really believes that the condor should just die off if it can’t adapt then that person better not be financing DU, Delta Waterfowl, or the Nature Conservancy. They also better not buy sporting goods in the US so that they will not be funding the Pittman-Robertson Act, which funds wildlife management programs in all 50 states. If they are contributing to any of the above then they are a hypocrite when they state that the condor should just die off. By contributing to any of these causes they have already stepped up and chosen to be an ally to all wildlife, including ugly ass condors and butterflies.
 
Right after I took hunter safety in 1966, my Dad and his best friend took me deer hunting in the Padres National Forest, inland of Ventura California. It was the coastal early season, August and we were coming back to our station wagon around 10:00am when an Audubon guy stops us to give us a pamphlet on Condors, asking us to be careful to not accidently shoot one.

We talked for a few minutes, assured him that we could plenty much tell the difference between a deer and a giant bird, but we would be careful. He mentioned that in all his years of searching he had never seen a Condor, but he wasn't giving up. Right then I looked up, then to the pamphlet in my hand then up again, and asked him if that wasn't a Condor soaring about 100 yards right over our heads. He just about fainted, and I've always felt blessed by the timing of that encounter.
 
dont forget the labrador duck, extinct since the mid 1800s. main cause of demise concluded to be development of nesting areas in canada with second place going to market hunting. im sure the lot of us would have liked to hunt this bird.

good call on the water thing those dry grain pellets suck, needed some maple syrup just to get'em down ;)

eddie
 
Ed,

I'm surprised to hear that the Labrador duck went extinct due to development of its nesting areas, because its nesting areas were never identified (which suggests that the areas it nested were not inhabited by people). Additionally, I didn't think it was market hunted much due to its relative rarity and poor taste (as a seaduck).

Do you have any references that I haven't seen? I'd love to read more.

Tod
 
were egged, likely unintentionally along with those penquins of the Northern Hemisphere, the Great Auk, (another one of those stupid, ugly, birds who deserved to go extinct because they refused to adapt), but I've not known you to be incorrect Todd, (except as applies to metal trim tabs on wooden boats of course), so I'm going to have to go back and check the few references I have on them.....the last two ever seen I know were caught on a longline by a guy fishing....likely he was using lead wts on that line and thats probably the reason they disappeared......yep....thats most likely the reason....

Steve
 
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Trap or skeet field cleanups and how the testing went.
I know they spent a bunch of $ cleaning up the old range on the coast southwest of me in CT. I think it was Remington's or Winchester's and was used for many many years.
Great info above. Thanks for posting.
 
yes an article in Ducks Unlimited by E Donnall Thomas jr. march/april the labrador duck "last reported in the wild in 1875" was named the labrador duck "despite a lack of objective evidence that the bird spent any time there." ok so its not proven but i beleive it more then a coincidence that "the labrador duck vanished suddenly during a period of increased human activity and development along the atlantic coast. (it was an atlantic coast bird i took that to mean that its wintering, summer and nesting areas were on the atlantic coast, even high atlantic) as for the market hunting ok maybe not the second leading cause but they were market hunted, "during the mid 1800s the labrador duck appeared in east coast game markets during the winter" thomas goes on to say,"within the course of little more than a decade, the labrador duck went from a market staple to a memory."

now the point of the post was that humans had a great impact on this now extinct duck whether the reason for its demise was human development in its habitat, market hunting, plume hunting (also mentioned) or accidental extinction of the birds food source by over fishing the ocean. i tryed to tie in with the elks across america theme and bring duck hunting back into the thread.

so this time i did have stuff right.... more or less. granted my references arent biologists, but thomas' was "ron rohrbaugh, a cornell ornithologist who kindly provided background information for this essay". so i did read it some where. and i take it this writer did some research to write the article.

eddie
 
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that I have in reference books here, and also in the information that I found on the net tlast night. Obviously with a bird that was last seen over 130 years ago any information that is to be found is gleaned from the same early observations and cited repeatedly.

What I found was the following.....

The bird was never common and was, according to every source that I show where it was mentioned, "only rarely offered in the market place", partly because it was rare even in the 1800's, partly because as a sea duck it wasn't considered one of the "better" eating birds, (a look at the old market pricing sheets rarely shows Scoters and Eiders and its likely that similar to Mergansers that when shot they were kept for personal consumption by the gunners rather than being sold), and because they "spoiled quickly".....that last comment was repeated often enough to lend it some credence so it might be that its size, and diet, didn't lend itself well to the "open air-no refrigeration" markets of that time like other birds did.

I found references to "egging", even though a nest was never described and, as Tod stated no nesting areas were ever found, or at least they weren't reported. Since "egging" was very common in that time period, (the reason for the extirpation of the Great Auk and the diminution of several other Alcids), so its highly likely that they were egged heavily even without the Whalers, Bankes Fishermen and local land based residents realizing that it was anyting other than "just another egg".

The plume trade and unintentional take by hook and line fishermen, (the predecessor of longlining not recreational), was also mentioned.

More commonly than anything else though was the undercurrent that the reason for the birds ultimate extinction was the loss of its very specialized food base. If you look at their bills they are spatulate at the tip and have multiple, long, lamillae.....two different refences stated that they were thought to feed like Shovelors even while every report said they were exclusively mussel eaters. It was also stated in all references that it was thought that early pollution of the bays that they wintered in caused the failure of this "exclusive" food source, (small mussels), and that that was likely the real cause for their extinction......


Until I read the above everything seemed to make sense. My problems started with the references to "feeding in Shovelor fashion" and a comparsion of the Labradors bill to the bill of Shovelors. Like them Labrador Ducks have bills with widened tips, flexible flaps on the, and large, well developed lamellae, which indicates "filter feeder" to me me. That bill certainly is not the bill one sees on other Mussel eaters like Eiders, Scoters, Goldeneyes and Harlequins, all of which have very stout bills, usually narrowed towanrd the tip, prominant nails, no wideneing at the tip and virtually no lamillae. The only thing that I can think is that their "preferred" food was mussels that were so small that they were not firmly attached to the substrate like mature mussels are, were easily torn from their anchors and were so small that they needed to be strained through the lamillae rather than just swallowed whole....

I don't know about the "history" of shellfish on the East Coast in the late 1800/early 1900 but it would seem that if, in fact, that food source suffered then surely the already scarce Labrador Duck would easily be overcome by a lack of food, an inability to switch to another food source, and then was dealt a final setback by a lack of recruitment due to the combination of "egging", the plume trade, and incidental loss from fishing and hunting....

At least in their case the loss wasn't something that people could see coming, and that "MIGHT" have been avoidable by the simple expediant of changing one particular vairable in their environment. Still I'd bet that "if" the general populace had known what was happening, and had been told, "do this and they might survive", that some would have loudly shouted, "screw em, they're ugly, not good to eat, and if they can't adapt they deserve to be gone".....


Steve
 
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