Thread: Is lead ammon necessary? Condor related

Power lines are a tough one, but power companies are usually willing to work with us here in FL on eagle electrocution problems. If we identify an area that is particularly dangerous for eagles, retrofitting usually happens pretty quickly. I would assume utility companies in AZ and UT would be equally accommodating. Not much you can do about the GE attacks, they're one of the condors few natural enemies.

Lead is something we can do something about though, and it doesn't need to mean the end of hunting. In most places, what kind of ammo you shoot doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme of things. Sure, some vultures and eagles are going to die, but not generally enough to impact populations in a big way. There are very few condors on the other hand, and losing just one is a big setback to the people working very hard to restore that species.

And full disclosure,

To me the California Condor = Vulture.

And I could really care less if they exist in the wild or do not exist.

There are a small group of them living right behind my Trailer here in Verdi.

Saw 1 dead on Hwy 80 not long ago, Hit by Car while eating deer Hit by Car.

Just a thought, How many killed by Wind Turbines

Full disclosure

People like you = asshole, I really don't care if you exist. Condors and vultures, and any species that had evolved over millions of years do not deserve to be driven out of existence because you ate people like you are too fucking cheap or lazy to make small changes to preserve them.

I am trying to educate myself about the issue, but block heads like you have an opinion not based on anything of any worth, yet you act like you know what you the fuck you are talking about which quickly becomes evident you don't know shit.

Originally Posted by hutash

Full disclosure

People like you = asshole, I really don't care if you exist. Condors and vultures, and any species that had evolved over millions of years do not deserve to be driven out of existence because you ate people like you are too fucking cheap or lazy to make small changes to preserve them.

I am trying to educate myself about the issue, but block heads like you have an opinion not based on anything of any worth, yet you act like you know what you the fuck you are talking about which quickly becomes evident you don't know shit.

You know what they say about opinions and assholes.
I have met you and you seemed ok.
But your type always reverts to the same modus operandi when someone disagrees with your point of view about almost anything.
You just started attacking me on a personal level.
What a weak ass dick

MTT is the new stuckatthuntermountain.

I was once at a lecture about species on the brink of extinction because of people who thought their convenience was more important then a threatened spieces. In this case it was a threatened fish because of a TVA dam. When the lecturer was asked what good was such and such fish, He simply asked the questioner "what good are you?"

You seem like a good guy, and I can deal with our significant difference in political views, but extinction is forever, so I get pretty riled up when people have such a cavilier attitude about animals that can be wiped of the face of the earth because of such an attitude. I do take it personal because I have followed the condor recovery from the start, and it is important to me.

I like MTT's strategy.

Say something dumb.
Get called out by people who actually know what they are talking about.
Take offense for being called out on your douchebaggery.

Originally Posted by Phildo_Baggins

I like MTT's strategy.

Say something dumb.
Get called out by people who actually know what they are talking about.
Take offense for being called out on your douchebaggery.

What was it I said that was dumb?

Hutash I know I struck a nerve. But common dude! We will be skiing together in the future and again sitting across from each other at a table sharing a plate of food and bottle of wine.

I have been north of Santa Rosa to party and race street bikes. Party with the locals.

I have seen drunk Ya hoo's who live up that way drinkin, token, and yea whip out the shot guns and kill just about anything they can hit.
Crows, random Varmitts, ect. Neddless to say the kill lays where it lands, cuz those yahoo's don't give a fuck.
Everything they did was against the law/ And no matter how many laws you pass they will still do this kinda shit.

You see where I am going with this?
I really don't belive this issue has anything to do with Hunters working within the hunting community.

FYI rilfle hunters have moved far away from solid lead ammo (For the most part) Pistol Hunting?? ehh

Originally Posted by hutash

I don't know if ground lead is significant or not, I will need to do so digging, but from bullets is a big well know problem, at least for wildlife, and replacing lead bullets/shot will make a huge difference. The question is, is it practical? Do copper expanding bullets really work? Are they affordable? Are they really less toxic? Copper toxicity could also be an issue, but I would think much less likely if not pron to fragmentation like lead.

Simply put, are there real alternative (and acceptable) substitutes for lead?

Substitutes for premium hunting ammo, perhaps, substitutes for general target ammo, no not feasible at all. IT will be a de facto ban on target shooting as it will make it too expensive for just about any middle class people to engage in on a regular basis, which it just about is already.

I doubt ground lead is an issue, I was mostly just making fun of the youtube comment because it is obviously just ignorant ramblings with no evidence whatsoever. I am intimately familiar with such things, I can recognize them. That and he wrote 'watter'.

Originally Posted by hutash

Full disclosure

People like you = asshole, I really don't care if you exist. Condors and vultures, and any species that had evolved over millions of years do not deserve to be driven out of existence because you ate people like you are too fucking cheap or lazy to make small changes to preserve them.

I am trying to educate myself about the issue, but block heads like you have an opinion not based on anything of any worth, yet you act like you know what you the fuck you are talking about which quickly becomes evident you don't know shit.

A world where 'deserves' has any relevance to fucking anything is a silly fantasy world for children to imagine they live in. Grow the fuck up.

Originally Posted by MTT

There are a small group of them living right behind my Trailer here in Verdi.

Probably explains a lot.

Originally Posted by Jethro

Probably explains a lot.

Yea, Trailer trash. And I work from home. So look at the carbon footprint I leave compared to most here.
When I MTB I just ride off the front porch and ride as far out and back as I please.
Deer graze right in my yard 15 ft from where I am typing. Vultures nest on the hill right on the other side of the Railroad tracks 50 yards from my door, and A Big Ass Owl also lives in a tree right there. I have to bring my cat in the house when the local coyote pack comes in close (Like right in front of my place) I Have had too call Fish and game X2 because of this gnarly old black bear that came right on my porch.
Who else has had a raccoon walk into their living room while they were sitting on the couch watching TV?

So I guess I am saying I like whom I am, and LOVE where I live.

Originally Posted by MTT

Yea, Trailer trash. And I work from home. So look at the carbon footprint I leave compared to most here.
When I MTB I just ride off the front porch and ride as far out and back as I please.
Deer graze right in my yard 15 ft from where I am typing. Vultures nest on the hill right on the other side of the Railroad tracks 50 yards from my door, and A Big Ass Owl also lives in a tree right there. I have to bring my cat in the house when the local coyote pack comes in close (Like right in front of my place) I Have had too call Fish and game X2 because of this gnarly old black bear that came right on my porch.
Who else has had a raccoon walk into their living room while they were sitting on the couch watching TV?

So I guess I am saying I like whom I am, and LOVE where I live.

I was hoping for a different response when I pushed that button. I have all the animals you have with the exception of the vultures, had a raccoon on my deck the other day and a bear ripped up my salvaged sod looking for worms. I chased a raccoon out of my house after he knocked my cookie jar over. I also lived in a trailer I owned for three years.

I also think your opinion of the largest bird in north America is pretty shitty, trailer trash or not

Originally Posted by Jethro

I was hoping for a different response when I pushed that button. I have all the animals you have with the exception of the vultures, had a raccoon on my deck the other day and a bear ripped up my salvaged sod looking for worms. I chased a raccoon out of my house after he knocked my cookie jar over. I also lived in a trailer I owned for three years.

I also think your opinion of the largest bird in north America is pretty shitty, trailer trash or not

Thats fair.
And push came to shove I probably care a little bit. But think the Condor advocates are going about it the wrong way.
I think I have made that pretty clear.

I Am not going to gloat. But I did not have to look hard to find this.
http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2009/...lling-condors/

Two of California’s highest priority environmental causes — promoting renewable energy and saving the California condor — are on a collision course. The proliferation of prop wind turbines and their well-documented history of killing birds of prey have put the future of the California condor at great risk.

The fact is, in recent years, many missing condors have most likely perished at wind farms in California. Many of the captive bed condors, released into the wild since 1992, have turned up missing. Nearly 1⁄3 (one-third) of all the captive bred condors released, perish for unknown reasons. If one looks into the scientific literature, collision is nearly always listed as a major cause of death to condors. But there is never any mention of collision in association with the thousands of prop wind turbines with blade tips spinning at 200 miles per hour in their habitat

At Altamont Pass, where nearly 7,000 prop wind turbines choke the landscape, over 1,000 birds of prey die each year. One of the most commonly killed species at the Altamont pass wind farm is the turkey vulture. This is well documented.

Also in the Article

Recently a ban was placed on the use of lead bullets in the habitat of the condor. In December, 2007, the California Department of Fish and Game prohibited the use of projectiles containing lead for hunting deer, bear, wild pig, elk, and antelope in areas designated as California condor range. This was for good reason, because the condors were eating carcasses left in their field by hunters and ingesting lead bullet fragments. Wounded animals that escaped would go off and die, only to be eaten later by condors. Scientists found very high levels of lead in some of the sick and condors. Similarly in Spain, dangerously high levels of lead were also found in the Griffon Vulture.

Assembly bill 821, the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act, Now makes it a crime to use lead bullets in thousands of square miles of Condor in the Southern California habitat that surrounds the Sacramento Valley floor. A look at the map provided shows the area protected by law highlighted in yellow. The map also clearly shows that two of California’s largest Prop Turbine farms, Pacheco Pass and the Tehachapi Pass wind farms, are located well within the protected condor habitat. Lead bullets are a great danger to Condors, but so are prop turbines. How is the Condor going to be protected from the proliferation of prop turbines from the wind industry? This is clearly the biggest danger facing the Condor

Originally Posted by MTT

I Am not going to gloat. But I did not have to look hard to find this.
http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2009/...lling-condors/

Well, I wouldn't gloat because those articles rely on an argument that doesn't make any sense. Just because condors die in an area that has wind farms, doesn't mean they were killed by the turbines. The part you quote is just making a geographic correlation, and is trying to connect dots where there isn't any evidence to back up. "This is well documented" isn't actual evidence.

Also, isn't Wind Watch run by some oil companies? Seems like they'd have a vested interest in tearing down the wind farms.

I say let's really start protecting the condors and turn California into a wildlife preserve. First step is get rid of the humans. I'm sure the neighboring states don't really want a huge influx of douchbags, so the most obvious solution is to just kill them all with lead free machettes and clubs. Their rotting corpses will be an excellent lead-free food scource for the condors. Is there any problem I can't solve in like two minutes? Goddam I'm a smart mutherfucker. And good looking too!

This lead-free ammo thing reminds me of feel-good fake -ass "Friends Of..." "environmentalist" NIMBYs trying to save the Earth by getting mtbs banned when five miles away there is a huge factory vomitting zillions of cubic tons of filth into the sky.

Originally Posted by MTT

I Am not going to gloat. But I did not have to look hard to find this.
http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2009/...lling-condors/





Also in the Article

So, because wind turbines are a threat to condors (they are, to some extent), then lead is a default non issue? It doesn't work that way. This is complicated process that will take cooperation from many different interests to succeed. As a hunter myself, I'm honestly somewhat boggled by the fact that people who claim they care about wildlife (hunters) have to be forced to do the right thing when it comes to the conservation of a non-game animal. These lead free laws make me a little uneasy, but hunters had the opportunity to mitigate the need for such laws. Instead they cried conspiracy and don't take my guns away, when it was never about that to begin with. At this point, the wacko enviro groups have seized on this issue and really are to some extent trying to use it to restrict hunting. If hunters had stepped up and done the right thing in the first place, the fringe environmental groups would have no ammo on this issue, as it were.

Lead should never be outlawed for target shooting IMO. You would break the bank shooting lead free at the range, and shooting would then really become a cost prohibitive activity. But for hunting? How many rounds do you actually shoot at an animal in a season that shooting lead free would make hunting too expensive? BTW, Barnes TSX doesn't cost much more than premium copper jacketed lead core ammo.

Originally Posted by flyandski365

BTW, Barnes TSX doesn't cost much more than premium copper jacketed lead core ammo.

.30 cal Barnes TSX-BT - 180gr. - $35.99 per box of 50

.30 cal Sierra SPT-BT - 180gr. - $28.99 per box of 100. This is a pretty premium standard lead-core hunting bullet. Works out to $21.49 cheaper than TSX's per 50. That's way less than half the price of Barnes. But that's comparing oranges to oranges. Let's compare apples to oranges:

.30 cal Lapua Silver Scenar - 185gr. - $50.99 per box of 100. This is a high-priced moly-coated target bullet. Still works out to $10.49 cheaper than Barnes TSX's per 50.

I don't know where you're getting that Barnes are about the same price as other manufacturers. Shit - even Norma and Nosler are cheaper.

How many boxes do you shoot at an animal every season?

Anyway, I must have been looking at price per box, my bad. I don't buy a lot of rifle ammo, yet.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that hunting as an expensive recreational activity (excluding subsistence hunters of course), paying a little more isn't going to make a big difference to the average hunters wallet. It could however make a big difference for condors.

Your idea of clearing CA of people is good, especially the lead free machetes. I am a bit concerned for the condors eating the people though - high fat content.

Originally Posted by flyandski365

How many boxes do you shoot at an animal every season?

Usually one round per deer, right in the brain. I can do that at distance because I shoot thousands of rounds at steel and stuff throughout the year. I don't know if you've ever shot AR500 plates, but the bullet completely disintegrates.

Originally Posted by flyandski365

I am a bit concerned for the condors eating the people though - high fat content.

Not as high as Wisconsistan.


I can see where a condor chowing on a deer with a couple fragmented bullets in him could be exposed to some lead, but like my example with the mtb banners - there are bigger threats to the condor.

Originally Posted by Jer

there are bigger threats to the condor.

I agree, and this probably isn't the hill to die on. It would be nice though if people would pull their heads out of the sand about it and stop acting like it's some big conspiracy.

Originally Posted by flyandski365

I am a bit concerned for the condors eating the people though - high fat content.

Not after the reintroduced golden bears get done with the carcasses.

Originally Posted by flyandski365

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that hunting as an expensive recreational activity (excluding subsistence hunters of course), paying a little more isn't going to make a big difference to the average hunters wallet.

You do realize that most hunters aren't trophy hunters or recreational hunters? Even if they enjoy it and find it fulfilling, for most hunters its about getting meat, in fact thats part of why its fulfilling, is getting your own food for cheaper than you could buy it but paying for it mostly with your sweat. All the really serious hunters I know are not wealthy.

I come from a hunting family (who needed to hunt to be able to eat), and I love shooting guns. That being said, there has to be some effort on the part of hunters to preserve the wildlife and ecosystems they want to hunt in. If switching from lead ammo to something less dangerous in certain areas is necessary, then I think the hunters should snap up that deal in a heartbeat before the EPA or somebody makes lead ammo illegal everywhere.

Seems like the only people on the hunter's side saying anything are the "they're coming to git yer gunz" crowd which most people just tune out, or the "it's not as bad as something else, so it's ok" crowd, who are just kind of idiots IMHO.