Assemblymember Pan speaks about how a ban on lead ammunition will benefit the state of California. (©Pam Flick)

Kim Delfino, California Program Director

Yesterday, we took one more important step in the effort to protect wildlife and human health from the toxic effects of lead ammunition. The California Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee passed a bill, by a vote of 9-5, that would require the use of non-lead ammo for all hunting in the state, putting California well on its way to being the first state to enact non-lead ammunition requirements.

The committee vote came one day after the bill’s authors, Assemblymember Anthony Rendon and Assemblymember Richard Pan, stood on the steps of the State Capitol with a scientist, a hunter, a veterinarian and Tesla the golden eagle, to outline why it is critical for California to remove lead from ammunition used to hunt wildlife. “Lead is a toxicant that is bad for human health and the environment, and lead ammunition exposes humans and other animals to this life-threatening poison,” said Assemblymember Rendon.

Lead is a known toxin that we have already removed from everything from paint to gasoline to pencils to pipes. Fifty years of scientific research has shown that the presence of lead in the environment poses an ongoing threat to the health of the general public and the viability of the state’s wildlife, including the California condor, bald eagle and golden eagle. Dr. Don Smith, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology at UC Santa Cruz stated, “Lead based ammunition is likely the greatest, largely unregulated source of lead knowingly discharged into the environment in the U.S.”

Assemblymembers Pan and Rendon, creators of the bill, with Tesla, a golden eagle. (©Pam Flick)

Lead bullets fragment into tiny pieces when they hit an animal during hunting. These small lead fragments are then easily digested by humans as well as wildlife that eat the gut pile of dead animals. Animals also ingest lead when foraging in fields and pick up spent ammunition mistakenly. These lead fragments are highly toxic in the humans and animals that digest them. In humans, exposure to lead causes brain damage, learning problems and slowed growth and, for children, no amount of lead exposure is allowable. In wildlife, lead poisoning causes an agonizing death through paralysis and starvation.

Given the toxic threat from lead ammunition, there is no legitimate reason to oppose the use of non-lead ammunition when non-lead alternatives are available, effective and comparative in price with lead ammunition. As Assemblymember Mike Gatto stated in the committee hearing, “This is the right thing to do. We don’t hunt with poisoned darts for a reason and we shouldn’t use toxic ammunition for hunting.”

Former Fish and Game Commissioner and an avid hunter Judd Hanna testified in support of the bill in committee. Mr. Hanna was one of 27 distinguished hunters from California – including the current President and Vice President of the Fish and Game Commission – who sent a letter in support of the bill because they believe it is a reasonable and prudent solution to a public health and environmental threat. Defenders has been working on this issue for years, is a sponsor of this bill, and one of the organizations leading a broad coalition working to pass it. Now we’ve secured a majority of the members of the California Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee to vote to ban this toxic substance. Let’s hope the full California Assembly embraces the cause as well. Stay tuned.

Bald eagle, ©Wes Gibson

Who do you think we should be listening when it comes to wildlife policy? Scientists or lead ammo lobbyists? That’s the key question confronting the California state legislature as it considers a bill requiring the use of non-lead ammunition for hunting.

Lead ammo poses a significant threat to wildlife, not the least of which is the imperiled California condor. Hunters shoot their prey with lead ammo and carrion eaters like condors and eagles come along and feast on the remains, swallowing lead shot in the process. The poison then works its way into their system and they slowly die an agonizing death.

But a bill introduced into California’s Legislature (AB 711) would require the use of non-lead ammunition in the killing of wildlife in California. It faces its first vote April 16th when it will be taken up by the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee.

Opponents of this bill claim that there is insufficient science to justify requiring non-lead ammunition in the killing of wildlife. But those arguments ring hollow, especially after 30 nationally and internationally known scientists issued a strongly worded statement, “Health Risks from Lead-Based Ammunition in the Environment: A Consensus Statement of Scientists,” on March 22nd.

These scientists are experts in lead and environmental health from universities, hospitals and laboratories from around the United States, England and Canada. And they were unequivocal in their assessment of lead’s toxicity and their support for the reduction and elimination of the use of lead ammo in order to protect human and environmental health. Here are a few excerpts from this statement:

• “Lead is one of the most well-studied of all anthropogenic toxins and there is overwhelming scientific evidence that demonstrates . . .[l]ead is toxic . . ….”
• “There is no level of lead exposure to children known to be without deleterious effects (CDC, 2012).”
• “Lead-based ammunition is likely the greatest, largely unregulated source of lead knowingly discharged into the environment in the United States. In contrast, other significant sources of lead in the environment, such as leaded gasoline, lead-based paint, and lead-based solder, are recognized as harmful and have been significantly reduced or eliminated over the past 50 years.”
• “The discharge of lead-based ammunition and accumulation of lead-spent ammunition in the environment poses significant health risks to humans and wildlife.”
• “Lead poisoning from ingestion of spent lead-based ammunition fragments poses a serious and significant threat to California wildlife.”

X-ray of lead shot in the digestive tract of a young bald eagle. ©USGS

This last point was sadly illustrated when the golden eagle mentioned in my last blog post died in mid-March, just five days before the scientists’ statement was issued. The eagle was poisoned by eating lead ammunition fragments in a carcass. Despite heroic efforts by the veterinary staff at the Bird and Pet Clinic in Roseville, California, to bring down the extraordinarily high lead levels in this majestic bird, the damage was done and the eagle died of respiratory failure.

There is no scientifically valid reason why wildlife and humans should continue to be threatened with lead poisoning from lead ammunition. Opponents of the bill are just ignoring the facts – just like those who fought against getting lead out of gasoline, paint and cans used for food. Fortunately, science and common sense prevailed in those efforts. I can only hope we listen to the scientists again and California legislators ultimately approve this important bill. Stay tuned!

This year, California has the opportunity to become a leader in the effort to protect wildlife and people from lead poisoning. Assemblymember Anthony Rendon has introduced a bill (AB 711) into the California State Assembly to require the use of non-toxic ammunition when hunting. Because we are committed to protecting native animals in their natural environments, Defenders of Wildlife – along with with our partner organizations – will be working hard to help pass this important bill. If California enacts the law this year, it will be the first state to eliminate the use of lead ammunition for hunting statewide. More than fifty years of scientific research has shown that the presence of lead in the environment poses an ongoing threat to the health of the general public and the viability of the state’s wildlife, including federally-listed endangered and threatened species such as the California condor, and our national symbol, the bald eagle. The time is long overdue to protect people and wildlife from this toxic threat.

Golden eagle

You don’t have to look very far from Sacramento – where this bill was introduced and will be voted on — to see the urgency behind the effort to get lead ammunition out of the environment. Just last week, a bald eagle died from lead poisoning at the California Raptor Center at the University of California at Davis. The bird was rescued from a creek bed in Tehama County after it was found blind and listless, unable to take care of itself or its nest. This is nesting season in California, and the eagle was likely out looking for food to feed its mate. With the death of this eagle, its mate will have to leave the nest to find food, greatly increasing the odds that the nest will fail.

The very same week, a golden eagle suffering from lead poisoning was picked up at a reservoir near Maxwell in Colusa County. She was found on her belly, pulling herself along the hillside using her wings, with her useless legs dragging behind her. She is currently receiving very expensive treatment at the Bird and Pet Clinic in Roseville, California. It is very likely that both birds were poisoned from eating carcasses left over from hunters using lead ammunition, and these are just two examples of an issue that has plagued wildlife for decades throughout the state and across the country.

Lead isn’t only a threat to wildlife. It also puts humans in danger. California Assemblymember Richard Pan is a co-author of AB 711, and as a pediatrician and chairman of the Assembly Committee on Health, he understands the effects that eating game shot with lead ammunition can have on people. As a potent neurotoxin, there is no safe exposure level to lead for humans. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines lead as toxic, stating that it can affect almost every organ and system in the human body, including the heart, bones, intestines, kidneys and reproductive and nervous systems. It is also extremely toxic to children, causing potentially permanent learning and behavioral disorders.

The requirement in AB 711 to eliminate the use of lead ammunition in hunting is the next step in a long effort by environmental and public health organizations to eliminate lead in its many forms from our environment. This bill would protect both people and wildlife by requiring the use of non-toxic – meaning non-lead —ammunition when hunting. This rule would be phased in over a two-year period in order to give hunters and sporting goods stores time to make the switch. Thankfully, non-toxic, non-lead ammunition is readily available and affordable, which will make the transition even easier.

A California condor flies over Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge (c)USFWS

In 1991, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service required the use of non-toxic shot for waterfowl hunting and, in 2007, the California Legislature required the same for big-game hunting within California condor territory. After these restrictions on the use of lead ammunition went into effect, hunting continued to thrive instead of disappearing as some critics had argued would happen. Indeed, we have seen an increase in the availability of non-toxic ammunition, which has been found to perform as well as, or better than, lead-based ammunition (click here for a video demonstration). Unfortunately, current restrictions on lead ammunition, while benefiting waterfowl and condors, are limited in geographic scope and to the hunting of specific species, which leaves most other wildlife vulnerable to this toxic metal. More protections are needed, and needed now.

In April, the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee will vote on this important bill. Defenders – along with Audubon California, the Humane Society of the United States and Physicians for Social Responsibility – will be heading up the effort to pass AB 711 and protect California’s wildlife from the deadly effects of lead poisoning. As the vote gets closer, we will keep you informed about this bill’s progress and, for our members in California, the opportunities for you to weigh in with your state legislators. Working together, we can get the lead out of California.

This week, the California Fish and Game Commission was supposed to demonstrate the use of non-lead ammunition.  They were going to show how there was no practical difference in the use of non-lead ammunition and lead ammunition – except for one very important distinction:  non-lead ammunition is not toxic and won’t poison wildlife and humans.  Unfortunately, that demonstration never happened because the shooting range owners pulled the plug on the event at the 11th hour.

A California condor flies over Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge (c)USFWS

It is too bad because the demonstration of the use of non-lead ammunition would have been an important educational moment for the hunting community – one that would have benefited their health and safety, as well as that of their family and of California’s wildlife.  The dangers of lead as a poison to humans is widely known.  That is why it is banned from everyday items such as gasoline, paint, pencils and water pipes.  Everyone knows that even a little exposure to lead can seriously poison a child.  What some may not know is that even a little exposure to lead can seriously poison wildlife as well.  A single ingested shotgun pellet or lead fragment can cause a horrible death in birds and other wildlife.  Lead poisoning isn’t pretty.  It affects the brain and collects in the bloodstream and organs.  Birds with lead poisoning are slow and lethargic, unable to sustain flying or eating.  They lose weight and are unable to navigate around things like wind turbines, buildings and power lines.  They are too slow and tired to avoid predators.

Lead was such a threat to waterfowl that in 1991, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service banned the use lead ammunition in waterfowl hunting. This was great news for waterfowl, but today other birds are still threatened by lead ammunition. Raptors, such as the highly-endangered California condor, the golden eagle and the bald eagle, suffer most from lead poisoning because they eat the carcasses of animals left behind by hunters.  Lead poisoning is one of the leading obstacles to the recovery of the California condors.  Biologists have to bring in condors regularly to “chelate” them – that is, treat their blood to remove lead.

States are beginning to address the problem of lead ammunition.  At least 25 states have banned lead shot for hunting specific species beyond what the federal government prohibited for the hunting of waterfowl.  Sixteen states have banned the use of lead ammunition in dove hunting. In 2007, Defenders of Wildlife worked to enact a state law banning the use of lead ammunition within the range of the California condor.  A recent study by the University of California at Davis Wildlife Health Center found that lead levels in raptors such as golden eagles and turkey vultures within the range of the ban were reduced after the ban went into effect .  Unfortunately, that ban covers less than 15 percent of the state of California, and wildlife is being poisoned by lead in the rest of the state.

Despite these limitations on the use of lead in some hunting activities, hunters are still depositing huge amounts of the toxic metal into the environment through the hunting of all animals other than waterfowl (and doves in some states).  In fact, frequently-used upland hunting fields, including those in California, may have as many as 400,000 shotgun pellets per acre.   And biologists are continuing to find carcasses of birds dead from lead poisoning. The time has come to ban the use of lead ammunition in hunting statewide in California.

Some in the hunting community resist a ban on the use of lead ammunition.  They claim that there are no good alternatives to lead ammunition.  That isn’t true.  If the California Fish and Game Commission demonstration on the use of lead ammunition had taken place, they would have seen that there are very viable and low-cost non-lead ammunition alternatives on the market today.  These are bullets that hunters are already buying and using.

What the Fish and Game Commission demonstration would have also shown is that lead ammunition fragments inside the body of whatever the hunter is shooting and also poses a risk to whoever is eating the meat from that animal.  For example, x-rays of deer carcasses shot by lead ammunition show a body riddled with tiny fragments of lead.  These tiny pieces of lead can’t be removed and are eaten by whoever is eating the meat – the hunter and his/her family.  Tests by the Center for Disease Control have shown that eating venison and other game can raise the amount of lead in the human body by 50 percent!  This has caused states like North Dakota to issue health warnings to pregnant women and children not to eat game shot by lead ammunition.

With the overwhelming evidence of the threat of lead poisoning to humans and wildlife from the use of lead ammunition, and the fact that there are safe, cheap and viable non-lead ammunition alternatives, why do we still allow the use of lead ammunition in hunting?  The time has come to get the lead out!

Specialists from the Environmental Contaminants Program respond to an overturned train, taking quick action to prevent diesel from running into a nearby creek. (Credit: USFWS)

In our modern world, there are a myriad of harmful pollutants, many potentially lethal, that adversely affect fish, wildlife, habitat and people. These include pesticides, endocrine disruptors, heavy metals, prescription drugs, oil and other industrial chemicals, fertilizers and numerous other products that are released into the environment through spills, disposal, ongoing use or other means. In recent studies of major rivers and streams, one or more pesticides have been found more than 90 percent of the time, and in more than 80 percent of the fish sampled. This may also be causing declines in pollinators such as bees and birds, as well as declines and deformities in frogs and other amphibians.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, through its Environmental Contaminants Program, is the primary federal agency responsible for protecting fish, wildlife and habitat from damaging pollutants. It identifies and assesses their effects, works to prevent exposure, and leads restoration of the resources that these poisons damage. If the federal budget goes off the so-called “fiscal cliff” at the end of the month and triggers significant funding cuts, or an overall budget agreement produces similar impacts, vulnerable wildlife will face an even greater threat from dangerous substances.

Disaster Investigation and Recovery
One of the most important responsibilities of the program is its leadership in Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration to recover fish, wildlife and habitat injured from oil spills or the release of other hazardous substances. When these incidents occur, the Contaminants Program investigates the damage and, if it’s not already known, determines who is responsible and negotiates with them for restitution. Then, using that money, the program works with other stakeholders on restoration projects like these:

• In 2006, they reached a settlement of more than $2 million with DuPont to restore wetland and river habitat in Delaware that had been damaged by releases of lead, cadmium and zinc from 1902 to 1984 during production of pigment.

• In 2009, they reached a settlement of more than $12 million with parties responsible for damage from the Palmerton Zinc Pile Superfund Site in Pennsylvania, where zinc smelting had been releasing metals like arsenic, chromium, lead, manganese, copper cadmium and zinc for most of the 20th century.

• The program is currently working to determine what restoration efforts it will take to mitigate damages to natural resources from PCBs that were discharged from manufacturing plants in and around the Hudson River. Studies are underway to assess how the substances may have contaminated the area’s fish, mink, sediment, waterfowl and other birds.

The USFWS responds to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, bringing oiled birds like this pelican to stabilization facilities where they can be cleaned, rehabilitated, and released (Credit: Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class John D Miller)

Since 1992, the program has negotiated more than $785 million in settlements from responsible parties to restore natural resources that are held in trust for the American people. That number predates the damage from the devastating 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, for which damages are still being assessed.

The Deepwater Horizon spill is now widely recognized as the worst oil spill in American history, with damage to natural resources likely to total in the billions. One billion dollars in early damages has already been provided for restoration, and will fund restoration projects like protecting and restoring habitat for beach-nesting birds in the Florida Panhandle, Alabama and Mississippi by marking and preventing disturbance of key sites, increasing predator control to reduce loss of chicks, eggs and nesting adults, and increasing surveillance and monitoring of nesting sites. It will also help with projects to restore nesting habitat for loggerhead sea turtles in Florida and Alabama by reducing artificial lighting through eliminating, retrofitting or replacing existing light fixtures.

Being Ready to Respond

Oil washes ashore in Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama (Credit: Jereme Phillips, USFWS)

The Contaminants Program also makes sure that teams are ready and able to respond to spills and chemical releases. This includes pre-incident planning and training, incident response, and post-incident assessment and restoration. However, chronic underfunding of regular operations has made it more difficult for the program to maintain enough expert contaminant biologists, given that contaminant biology is a highly specialized field. Moreover, when a major incident occurs and significant staff resources from the Contaminants Program are used to address it, ongoing restoration efforts from prior incidents often suffer as a result. Stretching insufficient resources is a challenge already faced by many programs that affect wildlife and habitats, but we should be especially concerned when the program that reacts to oil spills, chemical leaks and other contaminations does not have the resources to do its job.

The program already lacks the funding for its current needs, and any additional cuts will further undermine the work needed to prevent harm to vulnerable wildlife from dangerous pollutants. For example:

• There are currently no criteria to describe what levels of many contaminants are safe or unsafe for wildlife, and this program is working to develop them.

• New studies have shown that fish and wildlife populations are more seriously affected by mercury than previously known, especially birds such as the American kestrel, American white ibis, snowy egret and tri-colored heron, and other animals that consume fish and insects contaminated by mercury. The program needs to investigate to determine the extent of these impacts.

• The number of oil spill inland and in or near rivers is expected to increase in coming years due to the aging of the U.S. oil pipeline infrastructure, much of which is already more than 50 years old. As a result, there will be a growing number of damaging spills like the one in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010 that spilled over 800,000 gallons of oil and devastated wildlife across the region, including wood ducks, swans, great blue herons, mink, turtles, snakes, frogs and toads. Another spill in the Yellowstone River in Montana spilled about 50,000 gallons of oil and harmed wetlands and wildlife including the endangered pallid sturgeon, waterfowl and wading birds. It is absolutely crucial that the Contaminants Program be able to reach out to land management agencies and train them in the proper procedures in the event of a spill on their lands to ensure that the Contaminants Program will be called immediately both to protect wildlife in spill areas from harm, and to ensure that damages to the public’s wildlife and habitats are properly quantified for restitution before the evidence dissipates or washes away.

The Contaminants Program’s funding level has basically stayed the same since 2001, yet its workload has only grown and its small team of expert contaminant biologists is far overstretched. Please click here tell your members of Congress that you support a balanced approach to address the budget deficit — one that does not include further cuts to programs that protect wildlife from dangerous pollutants.

Fifty years ago today, a small book was published that awakened us all to the plight of our planet and arguably changed the course of history. I know it changed mine.

Rachel Carson (1907-1964), author of Silent Spring, pictured here in 1940 as a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Silent Spring was the book, and its author Rachel Carson was one of the early pioneer women scientists to work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during the 1930s. Decades later, I would follow in her footsteps, both literally and figuratively. As a biologist working for the same agency during the ‘90s, I had the great fortune to occupy her old office in the Department of the Interior building for part of my tenure. Then, when I was appointed director of the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1997, I stood on her shoulders as I led the federal government’s efforts to protect America’s natural heritage.

I remember reading Silent Spring for the first time when I was in high school. By then, DDT had already been banned nationwide, but America’s wildlife was still reeling from its devastating effects. Carson’s prescient writings compelled me to recognize the damage being done to the planet, especially the majestic birds that I had grown to love as a child. Through her eyes, I also began to see that it was within our power to stop the poisoning of our environment and save the growing number of species teetering on the brink of extinction.

During college I became more hopeful as I oversaw the release of captive-bred endangered peregrine falcons back into the wild. Falcon populations had plummeted after decades of using DDT, which made eggshells too thin and caused them to break. But thanks to dedicated conservation efforts and tougher pesticide restrictions, falcons, bald eagles and many other birds of prey were finally starting to recover. I felt very fortunate to play a direct role in righting a wrong, undoing decades of uncontrolled pesticide use and poor management of our most vulnerable species.

Peregrine falcons are one of many species that suffered greatly from decades of DDT poisoning. They have made a strong recovery as a result of conservation efforts and tougher pesticide restrictions brought on–at least in part–by the publication of Silent Spring.

I’ve often reflected back on Rachel Carson’s incredible courage and leadership as she challenged agricultural scientists and the government to change how the natural word was viewed and protected.  I’ve done my best throughout my career to highlight the importance of science, stewardship, and ethical responsibility and to emulate her courageous leadership as well.

Now, as president of Defenders of Wildlife (of which Carson was briefly a board member), I’m privileged to carry on that legacy. Each day presents a new opportunity to raise awareness of the threats facing our wildlife and the habitats they need to survive. Fueled by the passion of our members and supporters and grounded in sound science, we aim to make positive changes that ultimately benefit all Americans. In that respect, the message of Silent Spring is as relevant today as it was in 1962.

After 50 years, I wish I could say that all our problems have been solved. Instead, we’ve replaced DDT with other dangerous pesticides, we continue to lose more wildlife habitat each year at an alarming rate, the number of species on the brink of extinction continues to climb, and global warming threatens to throw many ecosystems out of balance. Yet, I’m still hopeful. And I firmly believe we can achieve lasting solutions to the environmental challenges we face today.

People everywhere are waking up to the reality of pollution and climate change and the loss of biodiversity, and they’re realizing it’s up to all of us to make a difference. Thankfully, like those of us who grew up reading Silent Spring decades ago, a new generation has recognized that nothing is more important than protecting the planet that sustains us all. With our collective efforts to create a cleaner, greener future, Rachel Carson’s spirit and call to action lives on.

Defenders’ President & CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark