My big problem is "dis-information". In other words if there are actual dove hunters doing the research and they figure steel shot is better- then OKAY but if it a bunch of tree huggers that don't want any hunting in any event, then the question arises whether the whole thing is or isn't warranted.
A box of shells is pretty heavy. I'll shoot a couple of boxes per shoot and shoot the field say 8 days per season- so I put 16 boxes of lead out there- probably 20 guys on the field, same field year after year. 320 boxes per year of lead. Year after year. That's a lot of lead. And...doves are easy to kill. I've never used steel on doves but probably works fine.
As I said, on most of these studies, I'd be a whole lot happier if the tests and conclusions were done by fellow hunters.

My thoughts exactly!!

Good points Dave.

I hope folks really don't think scientists and biologists aren't hunter friendly and create and alter their studies towards anti-hunting decisions.

Typically, their main priority is good science and scientific credibility/accountability. Plus 99.9% of them recognize how important hunting is, and are all for it. A good majority of them are hunters too.

Specifically, these studies are monitored by observers (most of them hunters) that do not know if the hunter is shooting lead or steel. So it would be foolish for them to try to guess and alter their findings. So, maybe that will give you some piece of mind.

Actually, I think there is that concern, not just me. I think most folks right on this thread that get worked up over the lead issue- I don't mean to talk for them but it is my feeling that all of them think the reports are slanted by anti-hunting scientists working for the wildlife departments. In other words it is my hunch if a well known hunter was also a scientist and was doing the research and then told everyone , "we've been loading up these fields with lead for years and it is starting to become a negative, we need to create new fields, or clean up the lead, or switch to steel shot. I think if a trust worthy hunter said that then EVERYBODY would shrug their shoulders and say "OKAY". We've had some great success's stories like bringing back the wild turkey, etc. I really think a lot of hunters hear some of the reports and just shrug then off as slanted.
Example- efforts to stop deer hunting in California because cougars eat deer and need the food or non-lead bullets because condors eat dead animals and a dead deer that wasn't recovered might have a lead bullet in it and the condor might eat the lead bullet so everyone has to use non-lead bullets.

In the case of condors, there is actually a lot of sound science behind the lead ban - and a lot of that revolves around the method in which condors eat, and their genetic susceptibility to lead poisoning. In that case, asking hunters to go with all copper projectiles was a good move and there was plenty of unbiased data to back it up.

That being said - a hayfield in TX is not the same as a California Condor scavenging the carcass of a deer or elk shot by a hunter and ingesting half of a .30 caliber projectile. It's an apples to oranges comparison and one simply cannot extrapolate that data to here and make it sound.

Additionally, even if there was a wholesale switch from lead to steel, we have no long term studies showing the effects of increased iron levels in the environment to really know if switching is solving a problem, providing a benefit of some sort or simply creating yet another problem that will need to be dealt with legislatively down the road. Iron itself may not create an issue vis a vis iron poisoning via ingestion, but it may create additional issues due to altering soil chemistry and the need for more and more fertilizers to combat that change. The addition of several thousands of pounds of iron to a field over time may be beneficial. It may do absolutely zero in terms of ecosystem changes - the point is that we have absolutely no clue.

Lead is a fairly noble metal, meaning that it doesn't break down easily and doesn't readily react with other elements. So while there is lead in the ground (and it comes from the ground in the form of ore to begin with, or did before the EPA shut down all lead mining and smelting operations domestically anyway), it is not a case of lead breaking down in the ground chemically and being further distributed in the ecosystem like steel would be (or at least not in large quantities anyway). Pellets need to be physically ingested to have actual effects - and cows, mammals and most birds simply don't ingest the pellets. I can vouch for the fact that dove don't, at least with my anecdotal evidence of 15+ years of dove hunting leading me to find not a single lead pellet in the craw of a dove. (For that matter, I've never found steel shot in migratory birds gizzards either, but that's a different topic of discussion)

There are a whole lot of questions that I've never seen addressed to give me enough warm fuzzy to think that any study over long term has been done, is on the books to be done, or will be implemented when the push finally does come to ban lead shot all together in hunting applications (I have no doubt it is coming, it is only a matter of when and not if to me).

On the waterfowl I recall an x-ray image of a duck's neck with ingested lead shot- the "proof" waterfowl were picking up lead shot from pond bottoms while feeding. Does anyone else recall that photo? It was many years ago and I was a kid but even back then my first thought was the "ingested" pellets ought to be in the stomach or gizzard, not the neck- looked to me like an x-ray of a duck shot in the neck with some pellets remaining. The other issue was that ducks (to the best of my knowledge) don't "grub" the bottom of the pond, they bite the weeds. Not to say that lead couldn't still be ingested but it just didn't seem that plausible. I belonged to Ducks Unlimited for a while. It seems that populations came and went from avian diseases, rainfall in the pothole areas, etc. but I can't recall any "comeback" stories from the use of steel shot. Still, I'll go with the experts but I do wonder at times.

Only way I see lead ingestion is gravel bottom or sandy bottom.

Even then highly limited. Toss in the majority of waterbodies bring silted bottoms and add in the pressure from water at depth... sounds like flawed science to get lead banned.

Regardless steel vs lead should be a public property regulation not private property.

It seems like a lot of lead until you break it down 120acres is a over 752,000,000 square inches of surface area. You plow a feild and that gives you 18" of vertical to add to it.

13,520,000,000 cubic inches by 7200oz of lead

That's an oz per 1,850,000 cubic inches per year. Or one pellet per 5950 cubic inches

1 pellet to 41 cubic feet.


Disclaimer: I didn't double check my math

I had to laugh. I love the science behind your math.

Interesting...with that conversion, Does that mean after 40 years, there is 1 oz of lead per cubic ft, and 288,000oz (18,000 lbs) of lead?

Some math wiz with most likely find a correction some where in there. I'm betting my favorite shotgun shell expert

350 #7.5 shot pellets to 1.25 0z load

So no you mis-read it

OK now I am peeing. The forum seems to finally be heating up to cooking temperature. Dern shame now that duck season is about over.

Oops

280 # 7.5pellets per 1 0z. ...So actually one pellet per 6607 cubic inches or one pellet per 3.8 cubic foot

1 pellet weights .003 of an once. So .003 oz of lead per year per 3.8 cubic feet

I drop more lead than that on the ground each year rigging decoys

Ducks (and other avian as well) will ingest what they have available (rocks, pebbles, lead shot, steel shot, bismuth shot, hevi-shot, etc.) and hold it in their gizzards because they use it to aid in digestion. Basically it acts as grinding stones to break down their food.

The studies were pretty suspect, at least to me - basically they had birds that they fed lead shot to and then monitored versus birds that did not ingest lead shot. Not surprisingly, the birds that they force fed lead to had health problems. There may even have been some field studies done that captured birds and identified lead shot, but I cant' remember to what frequency or what percentage of the overall study that was.

Don't get me wrong - I am not saying that ingesting lead is not bad, becaue it is. But what I did read (and this was many moons ago mind you), the methods of the study seemed skewed to get the result desired, and there was not a whole lot of field data included. Or at least not enough to satisfy me anyway, let's put it that way.

that was well played wasnt it

Got it...I think:

after 40 years: 40 pellets per 3.8 cubic ft., 10 pellets/cubic foot, 40 pellets per 6607 cubic inches, 1 pellet per 0.0061 inches x 13,250,000,000 = 82,472,000 pellets x 0.003 = 247,416 oz / 16 =

15,463.5 pounds of lead within the ~18" of soil of 120 acres. Still seems like potential for a lot of lead and pellets to me.

Also with 1 oz of lead most sources say #350 pellets per 1 oz of 7.5 shot.

So: 1 oz. of lead per shot = 25 oz/box x 320 (estimate of boxes of shells used in this example on a field) = 500 lbs of lead/year

Disclaimer: I didn't check Bobo's or my math and my head hurts now

Your right though 1oz 7.5= 350 8=410 7=291
I screwed up and used 20 reds a box instead of 25

500lbs of lead a year is 1lb per 15681.16 cubic feet

120 acres x 18" deep= total cubic ft after converting acres to feet

1lb of shot =5600(#7.5 pellets that weight .00285 oz per pellet)pellets

1 pellet per 2.8 cubic feet

.35 pellets per cubic foot

So .0009975 oz of lead per cubic ft

In 40 years you would have .0399 oz per cubic ft

I'd be more worried about tractor oil and hydraulic fluid

Plus According to the experts you wont have that much lead because ducks and doves are going to dig around for it and eat it... Grant it I don't see a dove or duck digging through 2.8 cubic feet of soil to find one pelt.

Point taken.

I'm not even gonna look at the numbers you wrote cause it doesn't really matter, and I'm far from a mathematician or soil expert, farmer, or lobbyist.

Regardless, lead, steel, lasers, whatever, I'm still gonna hunt. If I had to use a muzzle loader packed with gravel I'd do it. I'm just glad to have some good places to hunt and good friends to enjoy it with.

My head really hurts now.

We can question individual studies and some will be questionable, but the fact is there are hundreds of lead shot and lead ingestion by birds studies that have been done from the 1930s to recent. Probably every State has done them and most have current studies of some sort. Some by private non profit entities with an agenda yes. But many are done by entities that are mostly funded by hunters as well. USFW, and other federal organisations are constantly doing different studies. Individuals and Colleges through grants constantly come up with all kinds of new angles for a lead/lead shot studys. And private companies and business land owners with market interests as well. Almost every angle has been covered in several ways. Even studies on birds eating lead based paint chips near housing, birds ingesting lead from auto exhaust contaminated gravel along roads as alternative reasons. Studies of mass bird die offs such as the 600 LA Vermilion Parish Snows 4 years ago that tested to have died from lead toxicosis. Then there is all the tests and studies with lead in fishing tackle. And on and on. There is an occasional study that does not show lead to be a problem in relation to that studies purpose, but overwhelmingly most, no matter who the entity doing the study, testing, or research, find lead as damaging in some way. All conclude that lead is not beneficial to our environment.

I started paying attention a couple years before I had to make the change from lead to steel. Even went to shooting a 10 GA the first year of steel in an attempt to overcome because the first ammo options were just horrible on performance. I hated and cussed the change, but I see it as a non issue now. After reading dozens of the more detailed and relevant studies and case histories starting in the 80s and seeing the dramatic changes in non toxic ammo performance, options, pricing, and availability to meet the demand. I am amazed that we are allowed to still buy lead to shoot at anything anymore and amazed that lead is still allowed in fishing tackle at all. I do use non toxic maybe 50% of the time by my choice when I don't have to. So yes I am still part of the problem due to the 50% of lead I do shoot, but I do believe it is a problem in some areas and will welcome the change when it comes. And it will. The evidence is overwhelming if you spend the time to research it.

The thought ocurred to me when reading this. We have a lot of dove club fields right around my house here. On the opener each field will have at least 20 hunters. Every day of the season these field have hunters. If it were my land I would not want that much lead spewed out across it. I would require them to use steel.

Close this thread

The more we panic aboit it, the more they gonna ban it