Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Kim Delfino, California Program Director

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!

Kim Delfino, California Program Director

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.

Kim Delfino, California Program Director

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!

The wind energy project puts endangered California condors at risk.

Hoping to avoid avian “death by turbine,” conservation groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court to protect California’s endangered condors and golden eagles from a wind-energy project in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains. The North Sky River wind project will have more than 100 wind turbines on 13,000 acres.

Listen to the story. 

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Kim Delfino, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife, says the project is moving forward, despite their requests to get it redesigned to avoid environmentally sensitive areas and to include measures to protect at-risk birds.

“This project being proposed is right next door to the now-infamous Pine Tree wind facility. A documented total of eight golden eagles have died there so far this year.”

Delfino says the environmental review of the North Sky River project documented more than 50 golden eagle sightings within just 10 miles of the proposed site. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported nearly 1,600 bird kills, which is among the nation’s highest fatality rates.

The wind energy project also poses a huge threat to other bird species, including the highly endangered California condor, Delfino says.

“All the condors have radio telemetry, and we know where they go. They have flown over this site, and there’s real concern that this site is a very, very bad location.”

The Defenders of Wildlife, along with the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, are asking the federal court to stop the project and require the BLM to complete a thorough review before allowing construction to move forward.

Lori Abbott, Public News Service – CA

A massive wind energy project with turbines similar to these proposed for the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California threatens golden eagles and endangered condors.

BREAKING: Conservation groups challenge North Sky River wind project.

A controversial wind-energy project threatening endangered California condors and golden eagles in California is the target of a federal lawsuit filed today by the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Sierra Club against the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management.

Before turning to the court, the conservation groups met several times with the developer, asking that the some 100-turbine North Sky River wind project be redesigned to avoid known environmentally sensitive areas in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains and to include measures to reduce harm to at-risk bird species. However, the project is proceeding without these necessary changes.

Sprawling across more than 12,700 acres, the project’s alarming potential for impacts to rare and endangered species prompted warnings from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game in letters to Kern County supervisors, who approved zoning changes to accommodate the project. The North Sky River project is sited next to another wind farm – Pine Tree – that has a history of bird kills, including at least eight federally protected golden eagles in just over two years. The environmental review of the North Sky River project documented more than 50 golden eagle sightings and 14 nests within just 10 miles of the proposed site.

Golden eagle

In August 2011, the Fish and Wildlife Service wrote: “The first full year of fatality monitoring [for the Pine Tree Wind project] resulted in an estimated 1,595 fatalities per year, which per megawatt (11.8 fatalities/megawatt) is among the highest fatality rates being recorded in the nation…It’s reasonable to estimate that the proposed [North Sky River] project would have avian fatality rates equal to or greater than those observed at the adjacent Pine Tree Wind Facility.”

Additionally, the California Department of Fish and Game said the “combination of highly suitable habitat features on site, the known historic condor occurrences in the area, and recent condor activity nearby lead the Department to conclude that Condors will utilize the Project area in the near future and be at risk from turbine strikes.”

The conservation groups are concerned that the BLM discounted these dangers to rare and endangered species in granting the developer, NextEra, permission to build a new transmission line and improve an access road to the proposed site across public lands. The groups’ lawsuit contends that the BLM violated federal law by focusing only on the threats from the power line and road, while entirely ignoring the expected harm from the massive wind development itself. The groups are asking the court to stop the project and require the BLM to complete a thorough review before allowing construction to move forward.

The groups have a successful track record of working with renewable-energy developers to reduce threats to wildlife and the environment, facilitating the permitting of some 2,600 megawatts of clean energy since 2010. But unlike the many renewable energy developers who have modified their projects to lessen harm to wildlife, NextEra has failed to change the North Sky River project to sufficiently reduce the risk to condors, eagles and other bird species.

Following are statements from representatives of the conservation groups presenting the lawsuit:

Kim Delfino, Defenders' California program director.

“NextEra Energy and the Bureau of Land Management have thrown caution to the wind with the North Sky River project by ignoring the evidence of high rates of bird kills at the nearby Pine Tree wind energy project,” said Kim Delfino, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife. “NextEra had the opportunity to reconfigure the project to reduce the risk to endangered California condors and golden eagles. We’ve been left with no alternative, but to resort to legal action to prevent further harm to one of rarest animals in the country.”

“BLM shirked its responsibility to fully evaluate impacts to California condors and other rare species from the North Sky River project,” said Ileene Anderson, biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Properly sited and designed wind energy can be implemented without unnecessarily killing off rare birds and bats.”

“Building another poorly designed wind project adjacent to one that’s under investigation for numerous eagle deaths just doesn’t make sense,” said Barbara Boyle, Sierra Club senior representative in California. “This project is right in the pathway of California condors moving back into their historic range in California.  There is a better way—we need to locate these projects where they will pose fewer risks and have a better chance for success.”

Late condor biologist Mike Tyner looks on as a released California condor takes flight.

With a heavy heart, I write this post about the tragic, untimely death of condor biologist Mike Tyner.

While out checking on a recently released condor in Big Sur, Calif. Mike was fatally struck by a large tree during a severe windstorm on November 30, 2011.

But he was no stranger to putting his life on the line to help save these rare, magnificent birds. In 2008, he joined the rescue team responsible for saving eight condors from the Basin Complex Wildfire, which razed two condor facilities as it raged across Big Sur.

Mike was unassuming, humble and hard working, says Ventana Wildlife Society’s executive director, Kelly Sorenson. “He was truly an exceptional individual. This loss is catastrophic, heartbreaking and painful. As we mourn the passing of a remarkable friend, our hearts go out to his family. Mike will be greatly missed.”

Mike worked for the Ventana Wildlife Society, an organization solely dedicated to monitoring Big Sur’s flock of wild condors. And for several years, Defenders partnered with Ventana, helping to support Mike’s research.

Thanks to Mike, the team was able to locate numerous nests in Big Sur. And twice each year, he led an effort to recapture every condor in the flock to check their blood for lead poisoning—the leading cause of death among endangered condors—helping to ensure that sick condors received urgent, lifesaving medical care.

Although Mike is no longer with us, his dedication and research will be with us every day. His work has left a lasting mark on condor conservation efforts.

Our partners at Ventana Wildlife Society have helped to bring the California condor back from the brink of extinction—thanks, in part, to Mike’s dedication.

May his spirit soar with the condors.