Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva (Fullerton) should be congratulated for voting earlier this year in Sacramento to ban the use of lead in ammunition used for hunting. Instead, she and four other state legislators have been named as the subjects of recall efforts by a group calling itself Free California. The gun rights activists selected the five legislators for their support of eighteen different gun safety bills, including AB711, which will ban lead in bullets used for hunting by 2019. Seven of the measures were ultimately vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown, but AB711 was signed into law.
A Los Angeles Times article on October 31 reported that 21 California condors are being treated for lead poisoning at the LA County zoo instead of living healthy lives in the wilderness where they should be.
Adam Keats of the Center for Biological Diversity (an organization I recommend that readers support) is quoted in the story, “There’s a wide use of lead ammunition in condor habitats. The availability of lead needs to be reduced by sale and stocking,”
Condors are scavengers, who eat carrion. Lead in bullets essentially poisons their food source. The California Condor nearly went extinct until a captive breeding program brought their numbers back to viability. It’s still tough in the wild though, as long as hunters insist that their ability to use lead in ammunition is more important than the survival of an entire species of birds with a wingspan of ten feet.
Earlier this year Sharon Quirk-Silva supported a successful measure that restricted the trapping of bobcats, whose pelts were being sent to Asia.
She should not be the subject of a recall for trying, at least in these two instances, to preserve the wild fauna of California. We urge her to extend her concerns for protecting wildlife in our state by opposing the destructive desalination plant proposed for Huntington Beach. If hunters don’t have sway over her decisions in Sacramento, then the unions who want jobs to build the idiotic desalination plant shouldn’t either.
Environmentalism isn’t a pick and choose proposition. While it may seem possible to strike a balance between supporting wildlife in one instance while degrading it in another, our ecosystems will ultimately collapse unless we preserve what’s left of them now.
fullertonrag.com 
It’s really very sad that this issue, California Condors and the banning of lead bullets have been erroneously linked in the political and scientific arenas.
First off a little background about the condor program most people do not know, ALL California Condors are related to the two breeding females that were left when they started their program. Genetically the species is already doomed, there simply isn’t enough depth for it to be sustainable in the wild, ever, period. They should NEVER have been released as such, per federal guidelines.
The condor program over the years has killed several of their charges by using inter-muscular chelation procedures into the pectoral (chest) muscles that are weakened by the process and in the end, if they survive, have a lower quality of flight because of how the process has been handled. Several of the birds have expired while under treatments when their blood levels were not high enough to warrant treatment.
Several birds have showed high blood lead levels while in captivity. Several of the birds involved in the proffered food programs have shown high lead levels, no one knows exactly why. Since the proffered carcasses are not tested prior to feeding them to the condors we have idea what’s in the food they have been given, nobody knows! That should be a crime!
It has been known for many years that condors have a junk food problem, they eat all kinds of junk, bottle caps, paper, glass, wire, all kinds of junk. One theory is, they eat road kill and while dining by the side of the road they may pick up one of those shiny wheel weights that balance auto tires everywhere. They also seem to have an affinity for chewing paint, old paint with lead as a part of it’s formulation is one very probable entry into their food chain. There are lots of old buildings out there with old leaded paint on them, especially some of those abandoned properties owned by the Federal Government. (ex-military bases)
There is NO scientifically verified study that can directly link lead bullets to condor blood lead elevation, not a single one. There have been some “junk science” reports done, (2006, Church) but they have been proven to be flawed to the point that they have been thrown out by folks that understand metallurgy and they were rejected by the Fish & Game Commission (2009) as well. Political Bills don’t need the same standards as do commissions in making decisions, the legislature is free to ignore science, the Fish & Game commission couldn’t and they were pissed they were lied to as well.
Finkelstein – 2012, Lead poisoning and the deceptive recovery of critically endangered California condor, also cites, Church-2006 and it’s now publicly proven, false statements as proving the source of lead to be from bullets. Not noting that Dr Erik Randich proved this to be false and even stopped the FBI labs from using the same technology because it wasn’t correct and testified to such before the Fish & Game Commission in 2009.
I will never make the argument that lead isn’t a toxic metal, but then, so is the “lead free” copper substitute that is being foisted on the California hunter now. Copper as an elemental metal is more easily oxidized or sulfated in nature and turned into a toxin, than is lead. Remember that copper has been banned in anti-fouling boat paints for this very same reason. It’s use is highly restricted by EPA regulations in both industry and agriculture. I predict that copper will be banned as well as a bullet material down the road for this very reason. Those who put this law into play knew that right up front. It’s a straw man in the classic sense.
There are reams of e-mails and supporting evidence out there that this was a purely political play to go after those who currently provide the majority of support for wildlife restoration, that happens to be hunters and shooters, who pay a special tax (Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act) on each item (all, firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment) purchased (as much as $325,000,000/year [2011 report]) to directly support those programs and also through the licenses sold by the state for hunting. Reducing the hunters in the field will not only reduce the funding for state wildlife programs, it will also decrease the amount of “gut piles” left by hunters to help feed carrion, like the condors.
Availability and expense of copper is a serious issue. Not all calibers of bullets are available nor do they shoot or perform as well on impact in some cases. That’s not universal, but it is true about some calibers. Additionally they shoot differently and because they cost nearly twice as much, most hunters will not be able to practice as much as they would have with a less expensive round, therefore their accuracy may be less, leading to a greater propensity to less humane shots of game animals.
Conservation and healthy wildlife is a matter of great concern to those who consume them. We take the subject very seriously because we are the consumers of it, if they are sick we will become sick too. You may not be a hunter or one who fishes but for those of us who do, it’s a critical matter that concerns us deeply. The destruction of habitat, or population of animals in the wild are issues we care deeply about and we put or money, time and efforts where our mouths are as well.
While it may appear that this would be a “good” bill passed by the legislators, it truly isn’t one based on logic or on fact and ultimately will lead to reduced resources for conservation, and will not help the beleaguered California Condors either. In a couple of years there will be more head scratching and hand wringing over where the lead is coming from and more condors will be mismanaged and loved to death and we will be no closer to solving this riddle of where they are getting the lead.
Let me recap this legislation for a moment, the results will be fewer hunters, lower revenues, less humane deaths for game animals, fewer feeding opportunities for the condors and greater expenses in feeding the condors. A whole bunch of money, time and effort wasted for absolutely nothing in a chase for a cure based on a study that’s already been proven to be scientifically incorrect.
Nice Job!
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