Deer hunting season in Wisconsin is revered as an extended holiday. Many of these hunters spend colossal amounts of time roaming the Wisconsin hardwoods scouting for animal sign, spend precipitous amounts of money on trail-cameras just to catch a glimpse of the monster, and litter their homes with blaze colored clothing articles and gear in preparation for the hunt.
I’ve participated in these traditions. There’s nothing quite like spending numerous hours in the woods sitting still, being teased by squirrels, hearing the hoot of the great-horned owls. For those of you who’ve done the same, you know what I’m talking about, and for those of you who think this sounds crazy, you’re probably right.
In preparation for the hunt there is one thing that many hunters spend little time thinking about: The type of ammunition. Overwhelming amounts of slugs and shot are found in the hunting departments of Fleet Farm and Gander Mountain, and with sizes for every firearm, what are the costs and benefits of each.
An easy thing to overlook is the effects these different ammunition types have on the environment that produces these desirable monster bucks. Surely they can’t be too detrimental… wrong.
My name is Katie Rymer, a part-time avian rehabilitator at Raptor Education Group Inc. (REGI). Our rehabilitator eagles are graciously donated deer carcasses by hunters every year, these carcasses are void of any lead shot. Just this October alone REGI has received a handful of wild, lead poisoned bald eagles.
Treatment for lead poisoning is a series of injections that cost several thousand dollars per eagle, and require rehabilitation staff members to repeatedly come in contact with these powerful animals. Bald eagles, although preferring fish, often end up on road-kill animals and animals that have been shot and not found by hunters. Though road-kill eagles often make it to REGI for “hit by car” treatment, eagles that have been munching on unfound deer carcasses often end up consuming more than a lethal dose of lead.
The effects of lead poisoning on raptorial birds has been felt worldwide. The California condor (down to only 13 individual birds at one point in time) has been captivity bred, and after numerous releases has a small wild population on the west coast. There was one large factor that was putting an extreme pressure on the newly introduced condors. Lead poisoning. These wild birds had to be recaptured several times for the same treatment of injections as our Wisconsin eagles, a much harder task to repeat when the birds are free-flying in the environment.
I love hunting, and just like many other Wisconsinites, get that itch that starts in September and can’t quite be scratched for some time. Our rehabilitation team at REGI and our eagles would like to encourage hunters everywhere to give a shot at trying non-lead ammunition (no pun intended).
3 comments:
This is a really good issue that I have never even heard of. How do you suppose REGI or some other organization can get the word out for hunters to stop using lead ammunition?
I think this is a good topic to discuss. Lead ammunition is outlawed for the use of waterfowl hunting, and it has been for a number of years now. I see in the near future lead ammo being outlawed for deer hunting as well. I find it very interesting to hear about REGI and hear how they treat the poisoned bald eagles. The only bad thing about using other ammo is it doesn't shoot as fast or true and it is costlier. I think it will be hard to deter many hunters from using lead ammo unless it is done in law.
I am an Avid deer hunter and i also do all sorts of small game hunting where lead si not yet outlawed. I would be completely open to trying or even switching to safer ammunition if it meant saving wildlife. A goal as a hunter should not be to destroy wildlife with our actions, it should be to keep wildlfe sustainable so that we can continue to benefit from wildgame as well as generations to come.
Post a Comment